


The Obstinate Walls of Brigitte Fitzgerald

by thewindupbird



Category: Ginger Snaps (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewindupbird/pseuds/thewindupbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Sam survived? What if he found Brigitte at the clinic? What if they escaped? What then...?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kount_Xero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kount_Xero/gifts).



> Big thank you to everyone who read and reviewed this over on ff.net. You guys are all incredible.

There was a knock on her door, and Brigitte looked up from her writing, expecting Ghost, or even Alice - come to ask why she'd skipped group today.

In truth, she'd skipped group because if she had to listen to Winnie burst into tears one more time, she might punch her in the face - and who knew how easy it would be to break bones with the growing strength in her, the strength that was foreign and not her own.

She didn't even have time to move off of her bed, or say come in before Marcus stuck his dark head in. No knock, as usual.  _What_  she wondered,  _if I was changing my clothes or something?_ Surely there had to be rules against that kind of thing.

She should be able to lock her own door - but here in Happier Times Care Centre, even their private half-bathrooms didn't lock.

"Brigitte?" he said, and she felt her anger - her territorial instinct (another unfamiliarity) dissipate as his tired, hangdog brown eyes found hers. "You have a visitor."

He must have registered her look of confusion as uncertainty because he said "Just go down to the second floor. It's the second door to your left as soon as you get down the stairs. But he'd misjudged her confusion…

He'd ducked out and shut the door before she could voice her question.

_But who?..._

Who knew that she was here? Who would come to visit her?

She pulled her Velcro shoes on and slipped out of her room - only opening the door as far as she had to in order to slip out and take the stairs, avoiding the eyes of the curious girls in the hallway. Probably thinking the same thing she was.

Thank God Ghost wasn't around to ask her questions.

As she took the stairs, she felt the anticipation in her building. What if it wasn't someone she knew? What if people were coming to take her to another place? Another 'care facility' where she would be kept in even closer quarters - put in an even more hopelessly dangerous environment.

The door was open just enough for the catch to be resting against the doorframe. She reached out and pulled it open, keeping her hand on the cool metal doorknob as she stepped inside.

The boy at the window - it was unmistakably a boy, broader shoulders tapering into narrower hips - was backlit, so that she couldn't, for a moment, even tell what he was wearing, or even what colour hair he had - and yet somehow, instantly she knew, and she fought the urge to scream or run. Her fingers tightened like vices on the doorknob, slipping a little, with the sweat that had sprung up from her skin.

He hadn't even turned to her - she just saw him in profile, against the impossibly white winter Winnipeg sky, and she  _knew_  that it was Sam.

Her heart was beating out an allegro agitato against her throat and she wondered, vaguely if she was going to be sick. He faced her, and she blinked, her eyes adjusting to the light now, and Sam the drug dealer's eyes met hers, and she felt her shoulders rise up around her ears, her entire body tightening in fear and anticipation.

"Hey there, Bee F."

"Sam," she said, more of a question, more of a shuddering expulsion of syllables than his name, because how was this possible? Ginger had torn his throat out in the basement of her Ontario childhood home.

"I guess you're probably wondering how this is possible," he said, in such a reasonable, conversational manner that she began to think he was an illusion, just like Ginger was these days. She knew her sister wasn't real, wasn't there - she knew it was unhealthy to allow the illusion to continue, but at times it was so comforting, just to hear her voice so close, as much as it was terrifying and unnerving. Just like now.

"How-?" she stammered.

"The virus. Saved my life." He said. "I don't know how, but it did. It must have. Unless it was some freak of biology and the mixture of shock and pot slowed the flow of blood so that I didn't bleed to death. But when I came to, you were gone."

"No," Brigitte said, feeling like her world was reeling around her. "You're dead - I saw it."

"Yeah," he said, dropping her gaze and reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck. "I thought I was too. And I thought that that must be what you'd thought, because there's no way you'd just take off like that, if you knew, right?"

"Did my parents find you?" she asked, and she wondered if she was changing the subject.

He was looking at her again, and she found herself staring down at her shoes and her sweatpants collecting messily at her ankles where the elastic held them up a bit too far, unable to meet his eyes. She felt like a little kid - all awkward and confused.

"No," he said. "But I'm afraid I didn't stop to clean up before I got the hell out of there."

Brigitte thought, again, of how they must have felt, Pam and Henry, coming home to their house destroyed and covered blood. What they must have thought had happened to their daughters. Or what their daughters had done.

But at least there hadn't been a dead boy in their basement. Just a hulking huge beast, with a kitchen knife buried in its side, just under its breast.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, then. "About Ginger."

She couldn't cry, she thought, as her nose began to sting. She shut her eyes tight and pressed her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of it, taking a deep breath. Behind her, she still grasped the door handle with shaking fingers.

They stood in silence for what felt like a very long time. And then Sam said "Brigitte?"

"I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I panicked. I thought you were gone, or I would have-" she would have what? She didn't know. It was too much, suddenly. And the thought lingered that she was taking to an illusion - that she had finally snapped, and maybe she did belong in Happier Times after all, or the kind of place that strapped you to tables and administered electric shocks to your brain.

That was the kind of thing Ginger would have loved the idea of. But faced with the reality of it - as Brigitte always seemed to feel and understand much more tangibly than Ginger ever did, she was terrified.

Suddenly something was brushing her forearm, the one holding her hand up to her forehead, and she flinched away instinctively, covering her ears with her hands in a gesture she'd used for protection ever since she'd been a little kid. The door clicked shut behind her as she leaned back against it, pulled away from Sam's touch, looking out at him from under the protection of her hair - unwashed today and hanging, stringy, around her cheeks. For a moment, just a moment, she was feral and safe, and then the all-too human emotions flooded back in.

"Don't," she said, dropping her hands and shaking them out, excess nerves, uncertainty. She felt every inch the sixteen year old girl that she was. She took a deep breath. "It's too much." She said. "I thought you were dead. How did you even find me here?"

Jumping into action, clearly wanting to make things better in this moment - cut the tension, Sam reached into the back pocket of his pants and handed her a folded up newspaper clipping - the paper soft and faded from continuous handling.

It was a photograph, covering the top half of the page, and for a moment she didn't understand, until the walls, a few people began to look familiar. There was an article underneath about hope for today's Canadian wayward girls at Happier Times, and she scanned the words for her name - printed without her permission, certainly, but she didn't find it. She handed the paper back to him. "That doesn't explain how you found me," she said to the back of the newspaper clipping, to his hands as he took it.

"Look," he said, taking a hesitant step, then another, moving closer. He held the paper out again, standing almost beside her and he pointed to the board - the one with all their names on it, and in the middle, only slightly blurred, was her name. She stared at it, and then looked at him, so close she could smell him, and she hurriedly stepped away.

"You came here from Ontario - from  _Bailey Downs_  - because of the name 'Brigitte' in a newspaper clipping. About crazy girls."

He smiled at her suddenly. "Yeah," he said. "It's an uncommon spelling. And it worked didn't it? I was trying to find you for months - I was getting desperate. I almost gave up, actually, and then I saw this one morning because some old guy had left it on the counter where I was eating breakfast. Funny that. How things work out."

"How long have you been following- ridiculous leads trying to find me?" Brigitte asked, her incredulity making her voice higher, less guarded. Less low and safe.

"Since Halloween," he said. "Since I lost you."

She wanted to ask why, but she was too scared to. Too frightened of the answer.

"You're really real," she said.

"Yeah," Sam said. "I really am. And you're really not crazy, so what are you doing here?"

"I wouldn't be so sure," Brigitte muttered, then shrugged her shoulders and glanced at the door. "They found me face down in a snow bank after I overdosed on monkshood. There's one of them after me… I was running from it. They think I'm a drug addict with social problems."

"Well they're only half right, aren't they?" Sam asked, then met her eyes. "Sorry."

"So what now?" Brigitte asked, glancing towards the door, choosing to ignore his last apology.

"Now," said Sam, his voice low, his face very close to hers, dead serious. "We get you out."

"And how do you propose we do that?" she asked.

"I'm glad you asked that," he said. "Because I've been developing a plan on the drive up, just in case it  _was_  your name on that board, but I need you to tell me some things first."


	2. Chapter 2

The doors at Happier Times locked from the outside as well as the inside so that you needed a key to get in or out of the building. Unless you had someone waiting for you on the other side, to let you out.

"You can't just stand there all day and make sure the door doesn't shut," Brigitte had said.

"No," Sam had answered, "but I can fuck up the locks. I used to do it when I was in middle school. It annoyed the piss out of the teachers."

And so Brigitte had told him how to find the door on the side of the building - the very one she had tried to escape through on her first conscious day here, and then she had walked with him in silence to the main entrance, and watched Marcus escort him through the front doors, locking them behind him - and she caught only a brief glimpse of Sam disappearing into the blinding whiteness of the snow outside.

When she turned back, Tyler was watching her, arms crossed, and leaning against the nurses' station.

Feigning illness, she skipped supper and took only the things that she needed. She didn't have a bag, and had no way to carry everything. She discarded her Velcro sneakers and pulled her own boots from under the bed, pulled on tights, her jeans, two tank-tops, a t-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt and a sweater. Her coat would have to be left behind. It was hanging in the coat room with all of the other girl's coats. She wrapped most of her underwear, socks, and her toothbrush up in another sweater, and tied it as best she could into a bundle, the sleeves keeping everything secured within the grey fabric. She slipped it under her bed and placed her journal against it, then curled up under her sheets and, shaking, waited out the last few hours before she was to escape.

Every kind of thought that ran through people's minds when they're about to attempt something they care immensely about passed through her mind. What if the lock wasn't broken properly and she couldn't get out? What if Sam changed his mind? What if one of them was caught?

She almost wished she'd gone to supper. She wasn't hungry - she was too nervous for that, to the point that her feigning a stomach ache was almost a reality now - but it would also have given her something to do, to pass the time. Sam's watch hung heavy and cold on her wrist underneath her sleeve. He'd given it to her when she said that there were no clocks in their rooms. No way to tell the time. Now she leaned her head against it, listening to it ticking.

Lights out came at nine fifteen and she sat up and pressed her spine against the headboard, getting up and pacing every time she felt sleep beginning to overtake her.

Twice she found herself standing in her bathroom, smoothing her hair back and checking her ears - one was still odd and flat at the top - only slightly pink where she had cut it a few days ago - the other was still normal looking. She found herself tying her hair back, then pulling it out of its elastic a little ferociously a few minutes later, checking her arms and her hands, and the pale column of her throat for unwanted hairs that were not her own.

The thought that Sam, too, was now changing like she was struck her, sudden and sick while she paced quietly in the darkness of her room in her stocking feet. He had looked normal. Human… and a sudden fear gripped her, bigger than before - because Ginger had been one thing. Ginger had been her sister. Sam was still… she didn't know him like she knew her sister. She couldn't predict what he would do. But then again, neither could he predict her. They'd changed on the same day. They would probably be matched in strength now, as they had even been as normal people, and that thought, while terrifying, gave her a bizarre kind of comfort.

At 2:10 in the morning she pulled her boots on with shaking hands, her teeth chattering with too much energy, too much adrenaline, and she clamped her jaw shut, then stood like an imbecile in the centre of her room, clutching her balled up belongings and her journal to her chest, while she waited, waited until 2:15. It would take her less than five minutes to get to the side door safely and quietly if all went well. She didn't have to be there until 2:30, but it was better to be early. Who knew what she would run into… and yet, she didn't want to have to wait around there for too long, either. At 2:22, she flipped through the pages of her journal clumsily, taking in every well-known detail of the polaroid of Ginger and her, then she snapped her book shut and slipped from her room, and down the hallway, like a ghost.

It was too easy. Marcus was nodding off in the security booth like he always did - and who could blame him. After all, all the doors should be locked. Still, she had to force herself not to burst into a run as she slipped past him and fumbled with the latch of the door to the stairs, taking an eternity to close it without making a sound, holding onto the handle until the door was fully shut, and then easing it back to its normal position.

She took the stairs almost silently, her leather boots creaking strangely loudly in the silence of the building at two in the morning, and she still reached the outside door two minutes early. She was so filled with adrenaline weighing so heavily in her throat, she thought she might throw up. She grasped the door handle and pushed down. It didn't budge and her heart nearly stopped. Taking her chances though, she pushed her shoulder just a little against the door, and it slid open, whispering over the snow that had built up outside. Her heart leapt and a gust of cold air blew over her as she opened the door to the night.

She found herself on a metal staircase - almost a fire escape. Forcing herself not to fly down the stairs like hell was on her heels, she took them as carefully and quietly as she could, clutching the railing with one hand because they were slick with ice. There was a six or seven foot drop where the bottom stairs had been sawed away. Probably a security measure. Or maybe they'd just rotted off. She sat on the edge and jumped. As soon as her boots hit the snow, she took a few hesitant, almost drunkenly unsteady steps into the darkness, not quite believing it, because even if Sam wasn't here, she was free, she was fucking free.

She searched the darkness, heart pounding, not sure what to do now, where to go, but suddenly to her right an engine started up, barely a whisper in the night, but the lights flickered on and off again, lighting her way just for a moment; and Brigitte started to run.

She hit the car with force, a childish image of the wolf following her, or Tyler or Alice even, sedatives in their hands - keys flashing silver in the light of the moon, because how could she not have been caught?

She fumbled with the handle of the ugly brown vehicle - not the county greenhouse van, and practically threw herself inside, meeting Sam's eyes for the briefest of seconds - barely a connection, before he shifted the car into drive and they were off, peeling away in a squeal of tires.

She almost laughed. Almost. Low and incredulous. A little overwhelmed, she took a couple deep breaths. Sam glanced over at her.

"Okay?" he asked, and she felt the car shift and slow a little.

"Fine, just keep going."

They drove in silence for almost a quarter of an hour, and then Sam looked over at her and grinned. "We fucking did it."

And before she could help it, she was smiling back at him. He did a double take, just a small one, before turning his eyes back to the road, smiling to himself.


	3. Chapter 3

They didn't stop until they were a couple of hours away, at a gas station. It had snowed for a while, but now it was letting up - the green light of dawn just showing itself on the horizon.

Sam got out, and filled up, and she watched him in her side mirror - eyes searching the night. He stood straighter now - a little too alert for a human, and she wondered if she looked like that too - a little too strange - unable to pinpoint why, unless you  _knew_. She watched him disappear into the fluorescent lit store, and he came back and threw a plastic bag at her feet. "Rations," he said, only half joking. "Sorry, they didn't have much."

She pulled a can of Pringles from the mess of chocolate, bread, and water bottles, and a couple pieces of fruit, and pried the top off as they drove again.

They polished it off between them, and in the silence that followed, licking the salt from their fingers as they drove into the pale yellow-white light of pre-dawn, she toed her boots off and pulled her legs up onto the seat, sitting crosslegged, and tucking her cold feet against her thighs. "Why did you come find me, Sam?"

He looked over at her. "Honestly?"

"Yeah," she said. "I mean shouldn't you hate me, for leaving you there, for…" She remembered eating his blood. How it had tasted. Her stomach churned a little.

"For you trying to protect yourself from a huge fucking werewolf?" he was saying.

"No, but I- that was like-"

"Betrayal?" he asked, glancing at her. "Yeah, I felt that, but then I dunno. In your position, I might have done the same thing. Anyway it's done. And I found you because we're in this together." There was a pause. They both knew how it sounded. Hopeful. Too hopeful. Still, Sam - to his credit - looked her way and said, "Aren't we?"

"Are we?"

"If you want to be." He said, then a little softer. "'Cause I do."

Brigitte looked out the passenger window, leaning against it, the seatbelt cutting into her neck. She pulled at it, hooking it around her upper arm instead. "I guess I just think it's weird that you're so ready to forgive me."

"Because none of us were thinking clearly in that house, Brigitte." Sam said. "And that was almost a year ago now. I'm over it… you know, I mean I want to be, as long as we can agree to be in this together now, you and me. In this werewolf thing, or whatever it is."

"I'm sorry," she said, meaning the change, the fact that his life was now essentially as terrifying and uncertain as hers.

"Don't be. I went into it prepared for the… possibility." He looked at her. "So… what?"

"What?"

"Are we gonna be a team. Or whatever?"

She breathed something of a bitter laugh, the corner of her mouth quirking up. "A pack you mean?"

He let out a laugh, short and not quite humourless. "Yeah."

"…Okay."

"Pack of two," he murmured.

An awkward silence settled in. He reached down and flicked on the radio after a moment, and guitar filtered into the car, followed by an imperfect female voice

_And I never can say_

_What I mean to say_

_Small planes are here_

_But they never leave my room at all_

_They don't make it through, they don't make it out…_

_Twenty-five miles or thousands of miles, when am I going to leave here?_

_Twenty-five miles or thousands of miles, when am I going to get there?_

_Twenty-five miles of thousands of miles, who am I going to help there?_

_Twenty-five miles of thousands of miles, when am I going to get there?_

The music faded out, to be replaced by the thankfully soft, sleepy voice of the radio announcer, and Brigitte took a deep breath, finally voicing what had been bothering her.

"What have you been doing?"

"What you have," Sam said. "Shooting monkshood like it's fucking heroin. Only it's a different kind than the stuff we made for… before."

"What kind?"

"Aconitum anthora. The yellow kind. It's stronger. Makes you feel awful - worse than the other one, but it works better. For now anyway. I mean it's not a forever solution by any means, but…"

"I thought about that." She said. "Before the clinic. I was going to try it in spring. Where did you find it?"

"At a fucking grocery store near Saskatchewan. I carted out seven pots of that shit like some insane botanist. It's all dried in the bag in the trunk. It works better when it's fresh, but this is just as good. For the purposes. He looked at her again. "What about you, what have you been doing? I imagine they confiscated it at the clinic."

She thought of Tyler, his large hands on her thighs and looked out the window. "I'd rather not talk about it," she said bitterly, and then a moment later. "Saskatchewan…"

"Yeah," Sam said. "Thanks to you, I've finally gotten the ambition to drive through this whole fucking 'beautiful country'."

"Really?" she said, looking at him incredulously.

"Parts of it." He said. "Montreal - there's a French sort of lycanthropic connection that- well anyway. Alberta… but I got out of there pretty fucking fast. I can't imagine anyone wanting to live there. Toronto… and then Nova Scotia. I just left there before I came to find you here."

OoOoO

It was almost ten o'clock in the morning when Sam raised a hand to his eyes and cursed. "I gotta stop for a bit, Brigitte, I can't even fucking see straight anymore. Can you drive?"

"Not legally."

"All right, well let's not get pulled over so close to your lovely Care Centre, and find somewhere to sleep."

Too anxious to sleep, Brigitte curled up on the corner of the sofa, her back to Sam who had collapsed, fully dressed and face-down on the bed, his feet hanging off the side. His jacket lay on the floor where he'd shrugged it off.

She ate a bag of chocolate coloured M&M peanuts, wrinkling her nose at the taste. She'd never been one for chocolate - never had much of a sweet tooth. She suspected it came from a childhood where things like store-candy and bleached flour were considered poisonous, and all cookies were made with semi-sweet chocolate chips, and hot chocolate was made not from packaged mixes, but from real cacao.

OoOoO

When Sam woke up, he came over and flopped down on the couch next to her rubbing his eyes.

"Hey," she said, her arms wrapped tight around her torso. "You think I could have some of that monkshood?"

He looked at her with such genuine apology in his eyes, that she felt bad. "Oh shit, Brigitte," he said, already up and across the room where it bag was. "I should have been fucking thinking. I'm sorry."

He pulled out a pre-made syringe, already filled with a very pale yellow liquid. It almost looked like white wine. He prepared the needle, and she was already pulling her shirt over her head, one of her many layers.

He held out a tourniquet for her and she tied her arm off, then reached for the needle. He pressed his lips together. "You better let me do it this first time. It's really… not very pleasant."

And so she did, and it wasn't lost on her how much safer, how much more comfortable she felt with Sam crouching on the floor, one of his legs bent between hers, than she had with Tyler.

When he looked up and saw the scars, running horizontally from her wrists to her elbows he froze and looked up at her questioningly. She took a breath. "I was charting the healing time of my cuts," she said. "Keeping track of the speed of the transformation." He gingerly took her arm, as though the cuts were fresh and he might still hurt her, and rubbed her skin gently, searching for a vein.

"Fuck your veins are so tiny," he said after a moment, and she saw him wince at the bruising and needle-scars on the inside of her elbow. "Fuck, Brigitte," he murmured. "What've you done to yourself?"

She was staring down at the top of his head, curious at the tone of his voice when he slipped the needle under her skin- she'd almost forgotten it, so soft and careful. He didn't intrude - that was one of the things she liked about him. He never forced her to give him answers - and yet she found herself wanting to anyway. It was strange, but it didn't feel strange. Not with him. Rather it was strange on some weird, disconnected level, like she knew she wasn't supposed to like that kind of thing, was supposed to rebel against it, because that was what her and Ginger did to keep themselves on the outside, but here and now, she couldn't give two shits about that. She trusted Sam. There was no getting beyond that now.

The pain that filled her then was sharp and hot, like scalding water had somehow been released on the inside of her arm. He pulled the needle out fast, and just as well because she jerked her arm to the side and made a strangled noise in her throat as the pain spread - electric now - all the way through her body, resonating in her bones and exploding in all her nerve endings. This was what she thought a transformation might feel like - only it was just the pain and none of the physical shifts. None of the bones re-aligning. Forcing herself not to scream she bit down so hard her jaw popped.

Her whole body shook and convulsed, and Sam was holding her in place so she didn't slip the floor. It was like a seizure, the way her body completely stopped responding to her mind, but it faded just as quickly, it seemed, as it had come on, and she fell, shuddering, against Sam's shoulder, her collarbone digging into the sharp bone of his shoulder, exhausted, as though she'd just run a marathon without training.

His hands were on her back, holding her up, almost, holding her steady. For a moment, one brushed over her hair, feather light, and then she shifted and he helped her sit up. "You get used to it," he said.

She looked at him, her eyes dark and more than a little shaken.

"Sort of," he added. "I mean, I don't have to lie down on the floor anymore. He helped her unwind the tourniquet from her arm and capped the needle. "This is the only one I've got," he said, sitting on the couch again, holding the syringe between them."So… I mean, stupid question, but you're clean right? No terrible non-lycanthrope-related diseases I should know about this before I stick it in my arm?"

"No," she said, too quickly, and then. "Or…" the thought of Tyler, the syringe he'd used to give her the monkshood that one time.

Sam was looking at her now, strangely tense, his brow furrowed. "What?"

Brigitte took a deep breath and let it out, not meeting his eyes. "Tyler, a guy at the clinic. I let him give me the monkshood once. I don't know where the syringe came from, but it was at the hospital. I'm assuming it was clean."

"Why wouldn't it be?" Same asked. "And, wait. A guy from the clinic gave you the drug you're supposedly addicted to?"

Brigitte lowered her legs, aching with exertion from the new monkshood to the floor, wincing. "Tyler liked to get his rocks off by getting the girls there to do things for their drugs of choice," she said, not missing the way Sam shifted, too fast, anger coming off him in waves.

"What things?" he asked.

Brigitte met his eyes. "What do you think? Anyway, I don't think he would have used the same needle each time. I'm sure there were tonnes to choose from."

"Yeah," Sam said shortly, "probably," as he got up and, with his back to her, preparing a fresh dose from an empty spice bottle. He poured some into the cap and pulled it up into the syringe through a cotton ball which he retrieved from a zip lock bag.

"So, he said, casually as he tied his arm off. "What did you do?"

"What do you mean?" Brigitte asked, stalling for time, before the inevitable.

"To get it. You said he got the girls to do things. So what did you do?"

"I let him inject it where he wanted," Brigitte said.

Sam was looking at her and she met his eyes, boldly holding his gaze. "He made me pull down my pants, and he injected it in the vein which is exactly where you think it is."

"Fucks sakes, Brigitte," he said, and there was unmistakable anger in his voice. She got up, unsteady and strangely furious. "What else was I supposed to do, Sam? The guy was a jerk, I was changing. It was that, or maybe kill someone, and there's no coming back from that, okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay, I get it. Whatever."

"And what do you care, anyway?" she muttered, heading for the bathroom.

"Because he shouldn't be fucking doing that. Because you're better than that - I mean to end up in situations like that one. Because that's wrong on so. Many. Fucking levels, Brigitte, that's why I care. Because you're-"

Her mind, in her livid state - mostly embarrassed and angry at being talked to like a child - thought, scathingly,  _Because you care about me?_  and then she realised, that yes, he did. She didn't have to ask that question. She didn't ask questions she already knew the answers to. Yes, he cared about her. He'd driven around the country for a year looking for her. He'd driven to Manitoba on a whim because he'd seen her first name on a blurry pixalated picture in the daily newspaper, and he'd risked his life to help her cure her sister, when there were still so naïve to think that the dried flowers of a perennial could cure something like this. Of course he cared about her. The anger faded as quickly as it had come.

"…Sorry," she muttered.

"Don't be sorry," he said, for the second time that night, telling her not to apologise, and then he slipped the needle under his skin and, unable to watch the convulsions rip through his body, she stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is by the Innocence Mission and is called _Small Planes_. I highly recommend them.


	4. Chapter 4

She slept in the car later, and woke up near five, wiping a bit of drool from her chin, almost rolling her eyes at herself, because sometimes she was just too much like a child, and it was always at the worst time, and always by accident - dropping something in a quiet shop or slipping in a crowded street. "Hey," he said, "you're awake. So I was thinking, it's been a really long fucking time since I was drunk."

She pursed her lips a little in half-assed disapproval, but she was holding back a smile too. "So what are you suggesting?" she asked.

"Let's find a hotel and get wasted. It'll take the edge off, and I'm out of pot."

"What do you want?" he asked in the parking lot of the liquor store. Still two years underage, she looked at him a little panicked. "I don't know, what are you getting."

He studied her. "Are you telling me you never got drunk?"

"Me and Ginger weren't really into that sort of thing. That's why I knew it was weird when she started doing drugs."

"You're unbelievable," he said.

"I've had wine at weddings."

"And?" he asked.

"It was awful."

He hesitated a moment, then said "Okay," and slammed the door shut, disappearing into the store. She pulled her legs up onto the seat, holding her knees to her chest.

He climbed back in with a brown paper bag and they were on their way.

OoOoO

"Vodka," he said, "is supposed to have no taste, but the crap we have here isn't the purified stuff. Anyway, it's better than rum or gin. I can make it taste like juice if you want," he said, grinning at her a little.

They were sitting on the floor of a cheap motel in the weak glow from an ugly lamp that looked like the lampshade was made out of old carpet.

"I'm not a little kid," she said, reaching for the bottle as he took a swig. He handed it over, and she followed suit, shuddering as it went down and coughing a little. "Ugh, that's disgusting."

"Don't worry," he told her. "You're probably a light weight."

The liquor made her feel warm and sleepy inside, and she didn't realise how drunk she was until she stood up to piss. She staggered and almost fell down, using her hand to catch herself, and suddenly Sam's hands were on her upper arms, keeping her down where she was, sitting sprawled on the floor like a newborn filly.

"Sorry," she said.

"You should be," he said, smiling a little, and let go of her arms.

"I have to use the washroom," she slurred.

"Brigitte," he said. She met his eyes. "Can- will you let me kiss you?"

She stared at him for a moment, disbelieving, then said, with a certain authority, dismissing him, "You're drunk," and moved to get up again. She made it almost all the way before he caught her arm, saying "Yeah I know, but-" and pulled her down again. She landed a little more gracefully this time, almost cat like, crouched on all fours in front of him, her fingers supporting her upper body on the ugly, somewhat crusty carpet.

"I know but… listen, Brigitte. Bee Fitz." He smiled a little. "Just let me, will you?"

She wanted it. She knew she did. Her head was telling her all kinds of reasons why it was a bad idea, and yet she didn't say a word, only let herself fall sideways so she was sitting again, her legs curled against her hip.

"That's it," she said. "Once." And in her head, the question was swirling  _Why? Why?_

"Okay," he agreed, and then his hand was sliding over the back of her neck, underneath her dark hair, and his mouth found hers just for a moment, and she froze up a little. He pulled back, but barely. "That doesn't count," he said, "You have to kiss me back," and without waiting for an answer, he kissed her again, and this time, with his gentle press of insistence, she yielded, and her lips parted a little. He made a little sound against her mouth, and she felt its vibrations, and suddenly they were kissing in earnest, and she wasn't thinking about why, or whether she was doing it properly, because he clearly had no qualms the way his hand tightened almost imperceptively on the back of her neck, insisting she move closer without actually forcing her to.

She found herself almost in his lap, his leg jammed awkwardly between her knees where she knelt slightly above him, pressing her tongue against his tongue when it slipped into her mouth, and she realised, quite suddenly, why kissing happened. What the appeal was - because the feeling shot straight down between her thighs, tingling there. She moaned, embarrassingly, accidentally and he said "Oh, fuck, Brigitte," under his breath, and pushed her away with some effort, panting. "Holy fuck." He took a breath and looked at her, and his eyes were so dark - pupils dilated until they were huge with desire, and dim lighting. He studied her eye, then her mouth, and she watched him - feeling, with every inch of her, where his eyes landed, as though the touch were tangible.

Sam drank her in, the sight of her. Brigitte fucking Fitz, her mouth dark and swollen, and her hair mussed over one ear. She looked fucking ravishing despite the fact that she also looked exhausted and wary and too old for her age. Her hair hadn't been washed, and hung lank about her face. He reached out and touched her jaw, let his hand slide, heavy with liquor, to her neck, where he thumbed her throat, the ridge of her collarbone. He leaned forward and in a moment of daring slid his tongue into the hollow of her clavicle, and he felt her swallow. She exhaled a soft sound, and he was so fucking hard it almost hurt when he sat back, and the heavy, dark material of his jeans pressed against him.

"Holy fuck," he said again, then swallowed and looked away. If this had been Trina… if it had been any other girl he'd be on his way to fucking her into the carpet already, vying for leverage with his toes while he ground against her through their underwear, with the sweet smell of vanilla in his nose, and his mouth latched onto a breast, teasing the dark nipples to hardness with his tongue. There would be long, carefully painted fingernails digging into his shoulder blades, and he would move lower, lower, his mouth dragging long and hot over lace panties, easing them down long, lean, smooth legs…

But this was Brigitte Fitzgerald. Brigitte didn't smell like vanilla, and she probably didn't wear lacy underwear. If he was to imagine her body under her layers of skirts and sweaters circa 1890, he wouldn't have a sweet fucking clue where to start.

He realised he'd been staring, his eyes fixed on her chest, hidden beneath a sweater, buttoned to the collar, drab and of a material that looked like it was made of steel wool. She was wearing jeans - a change - but they were too big for her, rolled up at the cuffs to reveal brown wool tights, and shapeless. Maybe even men's jeans, because he couldn't trace the line of her hips at all, much less the curve of her ass - assuming she was built that way.

He met her eyes now, and she looked torn between uncertainty and distaste, but there was something off - something he'd not seen there before - a sort of unguarded searching in her eyes.

"What?" she said.

He almost said 'nothing', but something stopped him. That would ruin it. He couldn't do the uncaring play-boy thing. Not with Brigitte. Because one fucking slip up and it would all go to hell. And he didn't feel like that with her anyway. Yeah he fucking wanted her. He had for ages.

"I really… I mean are you okay with this?"

"If I wasn't, do you think I'd let you?" she asked - hiding behind that low, jaded tone of voice again. He was losing her. He could already see that part of her fading behind her eyes - the part that was a real girl, wanted girl things, the part that he understood - the part that was fundamental and primal, but oh so very fucking human.

"No, no," he said, almost laughing. "No you definitely wouldn't… but I… I'd like to… can we keep going?"

Panic. It flashed over her face for the briefest of moments, but he caught it and he stilled, not moving, looking at her from under his lashes, not intimidating. Not pressuring. She raised her hand to her mouth, pressing the side of her index finger against her bottom lip, wiping her scratchy-looking sleeve under her nose, not looking at him.

"If we go further it doesn't mean I'm going to fuck you."

"No, jeeze," he began, but he felt his heart sink a little.

"And I'm not going to 'finish you off'," she said in a way that was obviously taken from somewhere else - her mother, or some horrible teenage puberty book. It was the most un-sexual thing he'd ever heard come out of a girl's mouth while talking about sex.

"Brigitte-"

"And if you make this weird, then I think we shouldn't bother."

"I won't," he said. "You're making this so complicated, Brigitte, stop."

"No," she said. "I don't  _want it_  to be complicated."

She was looking down, hiding behind all that dark hair, and he wanted to reach out, and brush it away from her face but he didn't.

"What do you want it to be?" he asked, genuinely curious, running this thumb over knuckles, feeling strangely anxious.

She met his eyes, but only for a second. "I don't know…" she said. And then. "Why can't it just be what it is?"

"What's that?"

"Just… how it is." She was fumbling, but he got what she meant. Brigitte didn't sugar coat things. She didn't say one thing and mean another. For a moment, he felt an overwhelming surge of affection towards her - something completely unrelated to lust and sex.

He smiled then, and said. "Okay, yeah I like that, let's do that."

When she looked at him this time, from under her hair, he realised she didn't know what to do. For her, this was all theory. It was all what she'd read in books and seen in films and to actually do it - to actually move forward and kiss him was totally lost on her. He slid his fingers into her hair, smoothing them over the bone behind her ear, and he watched her eyes flutter shut before he pressed his mouth to hers again.

After that it wasn't so difficult. He pulled her into his lap so that she was straddling him and ran his hands from her waist, down the sides of her legs to her knees, clutching the backs of her thighs. Her legs were more slender than he thought they would be, but that might have something to do with being on the run for a year. He clutched at them through her jeans, as she grew bolder, letting her hands slide down his back over the thin, soft cotton of his t-shirt.

She didn't kiss badly but she was tentative, obviously uncertain, He pressed one of his hands against the back of her skull, keeping her close, the other ran down the small of her back, boldly down over her ass. She wasn't built all soft and girly like Ginger had been. Like Trina. At another point in his life he might have been disappointed. Hell, he might have been disappointed if it wasn't fucking  _Brigitte_ , but it was, and she was all wiry and tense and uncertain under his hands, and he wanted her anyway. Like her hands - which he found he was often drawn to, Brigitte was smaller, harder. Sexy as fuck. It wasn't what he went for but her mouth was pressed against his, harder now, and he grappled at the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head. Underneath, she was wearing tank tops, and she leaned back a little as he fumbled with them, his eyes catching the different colours of her shirts, all the straps tangled at her thin shoulders, and he said "Jeeze, how many fucking layers are you wearing?" and suddenly she was laughing.

He realised that in all the time he'd known her - all the time he'd spent with her in the greenhouse in Bailey Downs he had never once seen her laugh. It was surprisingly bubbly - bright. "I really have to- I'll be right back," she said, standing up and walking in a determined wobbly line to the bathroom, where she shut herself in.

He stared after her, then fell back onto his elbows and sighed, still feeling her hands on him, small and bony. When she reappeared she looked a mite more sober, a little more apprehensive. He pushed himself up onto his hands, still reclined on the floor, his legs out in a v in front of him. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he got to his feet and held out a hand, low, like to an unfamiliar dog.

"C'mere," he said, and she came, a little more stable this time. Standing in front of him, she reached down, arms crossed over her torso and pulled the shirts over her head. He caught a flash of grey-pink fabric, and then as her shirts slipped from her fingers to the floor, she was there, topless - nothing but a bra, and her pale belly. Her hip bones disappeared into barely a centimetre of black underwear that then disappeared into her jeans.

He reached out for her, her warm body, sliding his arms around her waist, and then up her back, unhooking the bra that was certainly old - the lace pilling, too big, gaping a little at the top of her breasts. Probably, he thought, it had been Ginger's. A strap slipped from her shoulder even before he could undo the clasp and slide it down her arms.

He could feel her shaking, and she closed her eyes as the garment came off, her lips slightly pursed. He started to say something, but words just complicated things right now. Right now there was this. Just this, and it felt like it was working. He wanted it work.

He knelt then, there at her feet, and slid his tongue over one of her breasts. She gasped sharply and he sucked her nipple into his mouth, his eyes fixed on her face. She was concentrated, a little closed off, as he let his teeth slide over her skin. She tensed, and fixed her eyes on him. "Sorry," he whispered, moving on, kissing the space between her breasts. He could feel her heartbeat there. Her skin was very warm. Almost hot. He pressed his mouth against her belly, slid his tongue over her hip - he knew this - he knew  _how_  to do this, but he felt nervous - like one wrong move would scare her out of her wits, and she'd put an end to it.

His fingers found the button of her jeans, undoing her fly, and her fingers slid over his as he began to ease them down. Too fast, he was moving too fast. He could see it in her face. He'd  _known_  it.

"What?" he whispered - speaking soft and secret, even though there was no one to hear them. But he could see it in her face. He was moving too fast. "Want me to stop?"

She shook her head, and he remembered all of a sudden how young she was. Sixteen to his twenty-three. Fuck, was that even legal? He raised his hands to her hips and held onto her, and her hands slid into his hair. He shut his eyes, let her trace his face with her fingers - like a blind woman. They moved soft and feather-light over his cheekbones, his eyelids, her thumb brushing his lashes then his brows - tracing him, like an artist before she was pulling him up by the shoulders, the arms. He stood up and holding her gaze let her pull him closer. She was hard to look at. So fucking intense. Trina had never held his eyes this way - it made him nervous - turned him on. He was pressing into her stomach, still achingly hard. Her jeans were still undone. She let his fingers trace the skin there, and her eyes fluttered shut.

"What do you want to do?" he murmured, his lips inches away from the top of her head.

"Aren't you supposed to be the one who knows all this?" she asked the floor.

He shook his head. "Not with you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, and he felt her shoulder blades tighten, like wings before taking off for flight.

He tipped her chin up, kissed the corner of her mouth because he felt like he couldn't get away with kissing her lips. He moved to her jaw, stalling for time - knowing the words that he felt, but feeling like an idiot for saying them. He did anyway, against the column of her throat. "You make me feel different."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she said dryly, her voice box vibrating against his mouth. He kissed her there. Felt her swallow. She was fading again.

"I do," he said. "I did. But I drove across the fucking country for you. Because you… I'm not lying, Brigitte. I'm not saying it to get into your pants."

She focused on him, that level gaze. He noticed the blue rising again in that strange, grey eye. The monkshood was working. That was good. It looked strange, like deep waters, stirred up by something. "I'm not," he said again.

She took a deep breath, and to her it felt like jumping from a precipice. "I know," she said. They stood for a moment, still and silent, and Sam brushed her waist with the backs of his fingers, both of them watching the trail of his hand as it slid over the slight swell of the side of her breast. He breathed out a laugh. "I'm not doing a very good job of proving that point."

"Not really," Brigitte said, but she was smiling. That strange, upward quirk of the right side of her mouth.

"You're beautiful," he said, his nose brushing hers as he leant down. She shifted uncomfortable. "Don't," he said. "Believe it."

 _But it's strange_ , she thought. He kissed her mouth and her hands closed in the hem of his shirt, just over his stomach. He pulled back to pull it over his head, "There," he said. "Even."

"I'm pretty sure you've been shirtless in front of girls before," she snarked. "I haven't been in front of guys. I hardly call that even."

"Did you want to be?" he asked, kissing her collarbone. "Shirtless in front of guys?"

"No."

"Lies and slander," he murmured against her ear. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise.

"Maybe," she acquiesced.

"Who?" he asked. "Tyler?" He couldn't hide the bitterness with which the name fell from his tongue. He hated that it bothered him. He hated that he was letting her know it.

"Maybe," Brigitte said again, and for a moment she sounded like her sister. She still hid behind her sometimes - even when there wasn't a body to hide behind.

"Was that all he did?" Sam asked. "With the needle?" He kissed the inside of her breast, trying to pretend that he was didn't care that much, when he fucking did. God, he fucking did.

"Mm," she murmured in the affirmative.

"You never kissed him?" Sam asked.

Frowning, she pushed him away a little, stepped back, her arms rising automatically over her chest, "No. Does it matter?"

"Yeah," Sam said, looking up at her as he slid his fingers into the belt loops of her pants, on either side of her hips but not pulling her forward. "I think it does."

"I think he's a dick," she said.

Sam laughed, sudden and sharp, and slid her jeans down her legs. She toed her boots off, stepping out of her jeans, in just her black underwear - unremarkable, cotton. Practical.

"Ever kiss anyone?" He asked, wondering why they were still talking. Maybe it made it less strange. Him and Brigitte F. This was what they were use to - botanist banter - both of them revelling in the fact that they'd found someone who geeked out about science and biology.

"Ginger," she said. "Once. We were thirteen."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" he asked. He slipped two fingers in between her underwear and her hip. "Okay?" he asked.

She nodded. Again, he knelt at her feet, heard her suck in a sharp breath. She was focused on something across the room, trying to think about the unremarkable green walls perhaps, instead of what was happening. Like she was getting a flu shot or someone was picking out a splinter.

"Tell me to stop if you want," he said, kissing the inside of her thigh. Her fingers slid into his hair.

He pressed his mouth against her, between her thighs and through the layer of cotton, and her head fell back on her shoulders, her long hair falling down her back. His cock twitched. Fuck she was… He pulled her underwear down, and she stepped out of them, leaving them caught around one ankle. There was a fine line of hair running from her navel, and down. Short, like it had recently been shaved - in fact all of her was compact, close-cropped, but nothing like what you'd ever find in a girly mag. She was, he found, the most raw, real girl he'd ever seen. She had razor-burn on the inside of her thighs that made him think that she must have, at some point gotten rid of all the hair, but then - he'd had to do it too, before he'd found the yellow monkshood. It cut back on the transformation by a lot. Almost reversed it. Almost. Enough that the strange hair he'd grown on his body- downy and dark like an undercoat - faded, leaving him looking for all the world like a normal young man. Even if the monster still roiled in his gut.

He looked back up as he slid his tongue along her clit. She was wet - just enough to taste the salt of it, and at the touch of his mouth, her body tightened and fell forward, and she made a noise that he never thought he'd hear from her - wanton, debauched. He almost moaned as he moved in again, pressing his lips against her, sucking gently. Her hands fisted in his hair and he did moan then, almost a keening. He was gentle with her - surprised she'd let him do this at all. Her body shuddered sometimes, and her breath came out of her in sharp, sudden gasps.

"Oh, fuck, Brigitte," he said after a few minutes grabbing at the backs of her thighs, pulling her close, his nose pressed against her lower belly, breathing hard.

He met her eyes and climbed to his feet, and she pulled him down to kiss him. He thought his knees might give out.

"Listen, can we move to the bed?" he asked, knowing how pushy it sounded but to his surprise, she nodded. She was gone, suddenly, and he felt it - the chill of the air in the little room and something else. He watched her walk away, completely naked, hesitating at lamp. She looked back at him, and when he started to follow her, she flicked the light off and slipped into the bedroom.

She was sitting on the bed, when he found his way in the dark, the moonlight hitting the side of her face, her elbows, and her knees where it stretched across the bed. She was staring down at her hands, cradled palm up in her lap, but she looked up when she heard him. He waited there in the doorway, holding her eyes, before she pushed herself back, all the way up to the headboard, her legs bent a little, knees together. The silence hung too heavy. He came over and knelt on the end of the bed, pushed the fact that he was hard, that he wanted her, that he might not get another shot at this because they were a little drunk, and… it didn't matter. She mattered though… and for once, he wanted to do this right.

"We don't have to do this, Brigitte," he said softly.

"Who says I don't want to?" she asked, her voice soft and strangely sad.

He moved closer, touching her shin, the side of her thigh, and her legs slid apart and he moved between them, not quite touching her.

"Then what's wrong?"

She shook her head.

"What's wrong?" he asked again, no nonsense this time.

"Just," she said, meeting his eyes and shrugging her shoulders a little. The words came out reluctantly. "I don't know who I am anymore."

"Fuck," he said, smiling at her a little sadly. "Neither do I."

She smiled at him, then moved forward and kissed him again, and her fingers slid down his stomach to the waistband of his jeans, and she struggled with the button. The zip was easier. He struggled out of them with the held of both their hands, and Brigitte's knees, and then he was over her, kissing her breasts, her neck, her mouth.

She was the one that pulled him down, the small of his back so that his cock slid against her. Both of them exhaled soft moans, and then they were lost to it, and finally, _finally_  her tenseness, her uncertainty seemed to melt away as they rocked against each other, just feeling, just them.

It happened by accident. He pulled back too far, or she arched her hips, and when he rocked forward he slipped inside her, just a little. Enough. She gasped, and he pulled back quickly, too far, touching the head of his cock, trying to judge whether there had been any danger in that. He knew it wasn't likely she'd be pregnant. He'd fucked girls without something before, but… he'd been lucky. That was all it was.

"Fuck, sorry, sorry, fuck," he said, and her fingers slid along the inside of her legs. She met his eyes, and completely ignoring his apologies, his panic - she said "Do you have something?'

"What?" he asked, freezing, meeting her eyes.

"Do you have something?" she asked slower.

"I- yeah, but-"

"Do you want to?"

"Yeah, but-"

"I want to."

He didn't have to be told twice. He was off the bed and to his bags. The condoms were box-less, but still attached, and he tore one from the others and slid it on, feeling strangely self-conscious here, at the end of the bed, rolling a condom on while she watched him.

"It hurts," he said, crawling back onto the bed. Fuck he wanted her.

"You'd know. Cherry-hound."

"Not with you," he whispered, and pulled her down a little, away from the headboard. He slid his hands over the insides of her thighs. "Relax."

"Easy for you to say."

"No," he said, short and tense as he pressed against her opening. "It's not."

He pushed forward and her thighs tensed instantly. He moved slowly, but steadily inside her until her hands clutched his shoulders. She was gritting her teeth in pain. "Ow," she said, high and tight.

He stopped, reached up with his free hand, brushed her hair back. Her legs were shaking on either side of his hips. "Shh," he said. Her eyes fluttered open and fixed on his. "Shh." When her grip relaxed, he pushed forward again and groaned softly."Fuck, you're-" he began, but stopped. Too soon for dirty talk.

"Okay," she gasped, pushing down on his shoulders, stopping him, shifting uncomfortably. She took a deep breath. He felt her forcing herself to un-tense. Her fingers rippled over his shoulders, then clamped down. He shivered a little as her nails dug into him. "Just fucking do it,"

"But-" he began

"Just go," she said, closing her eyes. He did, pushed into her. She made a noise in her throat, caught behind her gritted teeth, and then it exploded into his shoulder when she pitched forward, but that was it, he was there - buried in her, her legs twitching on either side of him.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Uhn… different," she answered.

He began to move, kissing her - all of it was slow, gentle. After a moment their mouths were just open, just pressing against one another. So close, they were so fucking close.

Brigitte had never felt this close to another human being before. Not even Ginger. This was completely different. Utterly. When he came in her, he made a soft gasping sound against her throat, a boy used to being quiet in the houses of a girl's parents.

She held onto him, not wanting it to end. She wasn't sure what happened then. She wasn't sure how to get dressed, or lay in someone's arms completely naked, or how to talk to someone she'd just had sex with. She closed her eyes and turned her face into his neck, breathing in and out, in and out.

He shifted against her and she made a small noise of pain as he pushed himself up and pulled out. He looked at her, uncertain, as he rolled the condom off, disposed of it, brushed his hand against the sheets. Goosebumps rose on his arms. The room was cold - apparently it was too early for central heating in Winnipeg.

"Let's get under these," he said, pulling the covers down, watching her shift her hips, her beautiful hips catching the light from the moon. They got underneath - and she was on her own plane. Her eyes were far away, not looking at him, staring instead at the ceiling. Her arms were wrapped around her body.

She crossed her legs at the ankle, staring without seeing. She was terrified, suddenly, and it felt ridiculous after everything they'd been through - to be scared of Sam. Or maybe it wasn't him that she was afraid of. No, it wasn't - it was what he might think - of whether or not she'd been terrible or mediocre or what. There was still a strange, unfamiliar ache between her legs, in her lower belly.

 _It's all this squirming and squealing_ , she thought, remembering Ginger's words.  _And then he's done. And you're like… oh_.

She jumped a little when Sam's hand brushed her belly. "Easy," he said, like she was a frightened horse. "Are you okay?" he asked her, his voice strange and soft - gentle. "Brigitte?"

She took a breath and, speaking to the ceiling, said "I think so."

His warm hand slid down over her hip. "What's wrong?"

She closed her eyes. "I don't know what to do… sorry." She said, all practicality.

"You don't have to do anything," he said, hearing the laughter in his own voice. She looked at him, fast and uncertain to see if he was laughing at her, but he wasn't. His fingers slipped between her legs, and the low ache in her belly bursting into something hotter, tighter. She made a noise in surprise as a sudden sharp sensation - pleasure and pain - shot through her, and her hips bucked slightly.

"Sorry," he whispered against her ear, making her shiver. His hand continued to work there, sliding his fingers against her, pressing against her entrance, slipping inside her just a little.

There was a strange pressure building in her belly - it made it hard for her to breathe properly. Her hands twisted and flexed in the sheets, gripping at them. She didn't know if this was right or not - if this was the feeling that she was supposed to be feeling. It build until it was overwhelming, almost painful, and she reached down, both of her hands, fingers warm and damp with sweat around his wrist.

He stopped immediately, pulled back from where he'd been sucking at her collarbone, and met her eyes.

Gasping she focused on the ceiling before meeting his eyes.

"Hurt?" he asked her.

"I dunno," she said.

He nodded, his eyes passing over her, his hand sliding from her thighs to her belly. He cupped her breast again, kissed her mouth, and then he was pulling her flush against him.

It seemed to last for a long while, their mouths pressed together. When they finally pulled away, he tucked her head under his chin, stroking her hair. When she was almost asleep, he buried his noise into her hair and murmured, "I really like you Brigitte F."

She didn't respond, and he hadn't really expected her to, and he tried not to let it bother him - tried not to get disheartened. Then he felt a warm hand slid tentatively around his waist, her small fingertips smoothing gently over the muscles of his lower back, press against his spine.


	5. Chapter 5

Brigitte awoke with a start the following morning because of the press of something warm against her back, something pinning her arm against her side. She sat up quickly, her heart pounding in her throat.

Sam's blue eyes fixed on her blearily from where he was laying buried in the sheets. "What's wrong?" he mumbled, before turning more or less onto his stomach and burying his face in the hotel pillows.

She caught her breath, realising a few things in rapid succession. One, that what had woken her up was Sam slipping his arm around her waist in his sleep, the second, she was not wearing any clothes, and third, had slept with someone. She had slept with  _Sam_.

She pulled the covers up against her chest, before she turned a little to look at the boy lying next to her in the bright light from the morning sun which seemed to have risen right outside their window.

His arm was stretched out across the bed, as though reaching for her, and his hair was a mess, falling into the part of his face not crushed against the pillows, trying to block out the daylight.

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, then, as carefully as she could, slid her legs off of the bed, staring forlornly into the other room where all of her clothes were. She had just braced herself to walk all the way out there, without a stitch on, when warm fingertips brushed her hip, and Sam's sleep-heavy voice said.

"Hey, where you goin'?"

"I'm gonna get my stuff," she said, without quite looking at him.

That seemed to wake him up more. He pushed himself up onto one elbow, rubbing his face with his free hand before he focused on her again, squinting in the sunlight, but definitely more aware now.

"What for?" He asked.

She tried to keep her eyes from wandering. Here and now, in the bright light she noticed the scars she hadn't noticed before. Of course, she knew, fundamentally, that they were there, but in the darkness, and underneath all his layers of clothing, and without the influence of alcohol she hadn't noticed. Perhaps she hadn't wanted to, but there they were. On his belly there was a wide gash - pale and silvery, more to his right side than anything, that had jagged edges spreading just above his hip, above his navel, and almost to the bottom of his ribcage. The wolf's teeth, pulling and biting. And on his throat, that was the one that struck her. It wasn't noticeable when he was dressed - she hadn't noticed it. It was faded, but when you were looking for it… and when you knew what it was from…

Without really thinking about what she was doing, she reached out and touched it, just the tips of her fingers to the place on his throat that was just above his collarbone. She must have broken it. Ginger. Because the scar slipped down around the side of his neck, but also to the top of his ribs.

"Yeah," Sam said, lowering his eyes. "They healed better than I thought they would, too, you know, what with the… the being a lycanthrope and all. Check this out."

He took her hand and pressed her fingers harder against his collarbone. She could feel a strange dent - where the bone had snapped, deep under his skin. The fingers of her free hand tightened on the sheets she was holding to her chest. She had no scars to show that she hadn't inflicted on herself.

"Weird, huh?" he asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. She met his eyes.

"That wasn't exactly the word I was thinking of."

He breathed a laugh through his nose, then wrapped his fingers tighter around her hand, and gave her a tug. "Don't get up yet," he said in a voice that was unfamiliar to her - all soft and gentle. He'd used it last night too, once, when he'd said her name.

"I should shower…" she said, trying to maintain her mental equilibrium because part of her, a big part, wanted to go back to bed with him. She took a breath and continued. "And then I think we should get moving. They've probably noticed I'm gone by now, from the care centre. And that wolf is after me."

Unable to hide his disappointment, Sam let go of her hand and rolled onto his back. "Yeah," he said. "You're right."

She hesitated, feeling bad again. Like she'd failed. Like she was being a screw-up as usual, and had said the wrong thing, done it all the wrong way round.

Steeling herself again - it was much harder this time, now that she knew that Sam was awake - she got up and walked into the living room. She gathered all her clothes to her, then b-lined it for the bathroom, her eyes straying only once to the bottle of vodka, still mostly un-drunk, sitting forgotten on the floor in the middle of the room.

The scent of coffee hit her when she left the bathroom in a flood of steam and the strangely familiar smell of hotel soap. She'd used it to wash her hair as well as everything else, because she hadn't been able to find any of those little bottles of shampoo, and it had left her hair unbelievably tangled. She trudged into the bathroom and collapsed into one of the chairs, working her fingers a little aggressively through her hair, trying to get the knots out.

Sam was at the counter, fully dressed with an unlit cigarette hanging between his lips, staring at the coffee machine as though willing it to work faster, but he turned to her when she sat down. "Do you like coffee?" he asked.

She nodded, and added, "But the sound of the machines always reminds me of a dog puking."

He made a face halfway between disgust and hilarity, then just made a sound in his throat and rummaged around for cups. "You're a strange girl, Brigitte," he said, as the coffee maker heaved another few drops into the pot.

Apparently Sam decided when the coffee was done, and yanked the pot out, letting the last few drops fall and sizzle on the hot plate below while he poured them both a cup and then sat down across from her, the pot now making vaguely alarming burning noises on the machine.

She abandoned her hair, dropping a few stray strands to the kitchen floor and pulled the mug towards her. He watched her fiddle with it, then pull a face after taking a drink.

"Too strong?" he asked her. "I always make it like that. My dad used to hate it. I looked for milk and sugar but…" he shrugged as he lit his cigarette. "There wasn't any."

"That's okay," she said. "Thanks for making it."

"This is nothing." He told her. "I can make you a real breakfast someday," he said, then added a quick, "If you want," at the look on her face.

"Are you implying that we might be in this situation again?" Brigitte asked, her head tucked down so low that he could barely make out her face.

"What? Breakfast after a night of- of-"

"Intoxicated sex?"

He choked a little on the smoke he was inhaling and sent it all out in a rush. "Hey, neither of us were that drunk. You could get me in trouble here."

"Why?" she asked him, spinning her mug on the table slowly by the handle. He had the feeling it was so that she didn't have to look at him.

"Because you're underage. And I'm like… what? Seven years older than you?"

There was no answer from Brigitte's side of the court.

"Anyway, whatever. I was only insinuating that, considering our circumstances, we'd wake up in the same building, in which I could make you breakfast, if you wanted."

For a few minutes, they sat quietly. Brigitte couldn't shake the feeling that they were fighting. A few times she started to say something without really knowing what it was, and finally, she came up with a strangely desperate sounding, "See, this is already weird…"

"Well then, let's make it not weird," Sam said, putting his mug down and standing up. He circled the table, and placed his hands on either side of Brigitte - one on the table - cigarette burning between his fingers, the other on the back of her chair - as she leaned back, away from him, with a look of something between fear and warning in her eyes.

He didn't know what to do. She often made him feel a little like that. Frustrated - not sure how to handle this, he said. "C'mon now, it's not like you've never done this before," he said.

"I just don't see how this is going to solve-" she began, but then his mouth was on her jaw, under her ear, and she found her voice faltered and died before the words were even on her tongue.

It surprised her a little when she turned her face to meet his mouth. His fingers slipped into her wet hair, still dripping down the back of her shirt. She felt them snag, and he whispered against her lips, "Your hair's really tangled," before diving in again.

 _That_  she thought  _is not the things they whisper in movies when someone is this close_. It wasn't right. It was a plain and boring thing to say, and yet it was real and _lovely_ , because suddenly he was smiling against her mouth, and she had to duck her head to hide her own strange smile.

"Ready to go then, Bee Fitz?" he asked her, pulling away and taking another drag. "We can find something to eat on the way, if my cooking doesn't appeal to you."

"I didn't say that, I only-" she began, but he was already on his way out of the room.

"I know what you meant. It's okay," he called from the other room, "I'm not offended because you already assume I'm going to be a terrible cook," he called over his shoulder, and just like that, the subject was dropped. For a while, they didn't bring it up again.

"I don't have any money," Brigitte said, while they sat in the parking lot in front of the restaurant as though it was one of those huge, terrifying gaping mouths of the clown-shaped buildings that promised a funhouse inside. The kind of funhouse that trapped you inside forever with warped reflections and fake doors, and never ever let you out again. "I left it at the motel when… before the clinic found me."

Sam's fingers worried at the automatic locks on the car, just for something to do. He pushed a hand through his hair, still damp from the shower. "That's all right," he said. "Come on."

He unlocked the doors and got out. It was a windy day, and he shivered, while he waited for her to climb out as well, her hair flying wild about her face.

At the table they scanned the menus in silence. Sam quickly located the cheapest thing on it, and then waited until Brigitte put hers down on the table, smoothing at the lamination with her fingers.

"What're you getting?" he asked.

She pointed. He smiled at her. Exactly as he'd thought, the 8.50 special. It sounded entirely unappetizing. A meal for old people. All cottage cheese and buckwheat.

"Really?"

"Well-"

"Anything you want," he said. "Seriously."

"But-"

"I'll be offended otherwise, come on. What do you really want?"

"I don't know… it's all been clinic Jell-O and Pringles."

He fought a smile. "Clinic food. You're a keeper all right," he said, and grinned when she ducked her head in embarrassment.

When the food arrived she stared in disbelief over her eggs at the half-pound of whipped cream and powdered sugar on his waffles.

"That can't be healthy."

"Mm," he agreed, eating the whipped cream alone. "That's the point."

"Our parents never let us have anything like that." Brigitte said, toying with her food more than eating it. ( _'Our parents'_  Sam noticed. Like Ginger was still there.) "Because Ginger would get so hyper, and I would get sick-"

He made a sound into his coffee mug that was probably a snort of laughter, which she chose to ignore.

"And once G- our grandmother took us all out to eat, and she said we could have anything we wanted, because it was my birthday, and so then you have to treat both kids, you know, it can't just be the one. And she got this thing, Ginger did… pancakes maybe, or crepes, but it had so much chocolate and sugar on it, and it was like… eight thirty in the morning, and Henry- my dad, he got mad at her, and then he got mad at Grammy, and Pamela was just trying to get him to stop because we were in public, and Ginge, she just ate the whole thing, and then she wouldn't shut up the whole way home… She kept trying to get me to have some. I think she might have gotten it for me in the end, but I didn't take it because I didn't want everyone to keep being so- pissed off at each other on my birthday…"

Sam watched her put a forkful of egg into her mouth from across the table. "How old were you?" he asked quietly.

"Seven maybe. Or eight."

He went back to his food to hide the feeling he knew must be showing itself on his face. Brigitte didn't want pity. He knew that. But there was something in him that just wanted to be there, on that day - scoop that quiet, dark haired little girl up into his arms and take her away from all that. Make it better. Or at least just make everyone shut up.

"On the car ride home, she threw up on me," Brigitte finished.

"Sounds like a good birthday."

Brigitte shrugged a shoulder.

"When is it?" he asked. "Your birthday?"

"September 19th."

He nodded, filing it away somewhere in his mind.

They finished eating, and she hovered around the newspapers while he paid. She took one as they left, making the trek across the icy parking lot to the car.

"So what now?" he asked, as they slammed their doors shut against the wind.

"I don't know…" she said. "Where was your favourite place… when you were looking for me?"

He tapped at the steering wheel with both hands. "See, the thing is, Brigitte… I've been selling some stuff to get by. Pot and… other things. Definitely more illegal. But I think we should go somewhere where the dealing will be good. At least for now… until we figure out what else to do."

She pursed her lips, knowing the danger that put them in. Changing into monsters, dealing drugs, escaping clinics… it wasn't good.

"The way I see it," he continued, "is that if we're not starving to death, and sleeping on… park benches and in subways, we can worry about other things. More important than our next meal."

"You're right," she said. "So where to?"

"I was thinking back to Montreal."


	6. Chapter 6

"Ehh…" Brigitte said, eyeing the club from across the street in Sam's car. The girls lining up were all wearing short sheath dresses and impossibly high heels. There was laughter, screaming laughter - and couples hanging all over each other, swaying a little where they stood.

"Yeah, I know," Sam said, "It's not my place of choice either, but we're more likely to make a sale here than another club. Trust me," he finished. "I speak from experience."

" _We're_  more likely to make a sale?" she asked, leaning her shoulder against the passenger door.

"Yep," Sam said. "You're gonna come in with me."

" _Why_?"

"Don't sound so horrified. You'll be like my cover. A guy in a club like that alone looks suspicious - especially if what I'm doing is exactly what cops will be looking for in a bust. If you're there, they won't look twice at me. I'll be just like everyone else."

"I'm not old enough."

"Don't worry about that."

"Wh- Why can't you just find some girl inside? I'm sure they… wouldn't mind," she said, her voice lowered, and her nose wrinkled in disgust as she watched the girls literally hanging off the arms of the male partners.

"Don't be so hard on them," Sam said. "They're gonna be the ones giving us the cash… but yeah, I know. And besides, I'd rather it be you."

She watched him light a cigarette, without looking at her. "Because you'll know what's going on. If we need to leave, we can leave, no questions asked, no waiting for the drunk girl to find her coat, no hanging around to let all her friends know where she's going."

"I'm  _not_  going in there," she said.

"Not like that, you aren't," he said, glancing over at her - in her jeans, and shapeless sweater. He'd tried to lend her his jacket, but she'd refused to take it.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you can't get in unless you're dressed properly."

"No," Brigitte said, feeling disgust rising in her throat. "I'm not doing this. We'll just go somewhere else."

"See, Brige, the thing with this place is that we can be out of here before sunup. If we go to any other club, we'll never get out of fucking... Manitoba. We'll have to trek around. This place is the best. And they're so drunk they won't even mind paying extra for a little bit of green, so…"

Brigitte heaved a sigh and looked out the window, staring hard at the building next to them. She knew he was right. And she wanted to get out of Manitoba. It would be safer then - the further away they were from Happier Times, the better. "I'm not wearing  _anything_  like that." she said.

"Fair enough," he told her.

"And I can't believe we're going to spend money we don't have on clothes so you can sell drugs."

"We'll make a profit, believe me."

She heaved a sigh. "You'd better be right. And Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I think it's a bit too early for nicknames."

"Too early for Brige?"

"Yes."

"You never complained about Bee Fitz."

"Can we get this over with, please?"

Sam breathed a laugh and started the car. "All right. We've got… two hours before we've gotta be in there. Let's get going."

OoOoO

She stared at the rack of dresses in front of her - shiny and sequined, all spandex and single shoulders, and backless monstrosities. She shut her eyes and breathed deeply in and out.

"This is stupid," she said, when she felt Sam come up behind her. He'd found a blazer, a button down shirt - and with the dark jeans he was wearing, he cleaned up nice. That had been an hour ago. Brigitte had stubbornly not picked out a thing. She could feel him getting frustrated, even without him touching her, even without looking at him. He shifted his weight, his wet boots squeaking on the shining tiled floor.

"You're terrible at this."

"Well, what did you expect?" she snapped, her voice too high, a little too emotional.

"Here… none of this is going to work. Don't just stand in front of them like you can ignite them with your eyeballs, come on." She didn't miss the shortness in his tone and turned, arms wrapped tight around her waist, shoulders hunched, barely following him at all. He turned and shoved a lavender coloured dress into her arms. "Try that on, go."

Sam practically pushed her towards the dressing rooms, and she shot him a glare before going inside and slamming the door. She stood in front of the fluorescent lit mirror, which made everyone look atrocious and shut her eyes for a second. "Fuck. This."

Sam kicked her door gently. "We've got twenty-five minutes, hurry up."

"I hate you," she muttered, undoing her jeans, and pulling her shirt over her head.

"I can hear you," came Sam's voice from the other side of the door.

She struggled with the material. The straps crossed in the back, and when she finally figured that out, there was the zip up the back that she struggled to do up. She glanced up at her reflection for the first time, then did a double take.

The dress was long, to her knees, but tight all the way to the hips. It was open to the small of her back, but at least the straps crossed properly over her shoulder blades. The neck scooped at her breasts in a way that wasn't modest, but certainly wasn't over-exposed either.

She stared at herself in silence, not startled - not that, but something else… stupid maybe. Like a little kid playing dress-up with her mother's clothes.

"Have you died in there, or what?" Sam asked, right on the other side of the door, making her jump.

"Uh…"

"Does it fit, or not? I'll find something else," he said, then mumbled "I'm no fucking good at this…" she had the feeling he stared at the wall of dresses in the same way she did - completely overwhelmed.

"I don't- know."

"Well, come out then, let me see."

"No!" she said, panicking, her hands moving to undo the zipper.

"Brigitte, come on… fuck."

"I'm not doing this," she said, "I'm not going - find someone else to be your cover."

"We've been here for… fucking an hour and a half, we're not changing the plan now. Just open the fucking door."

It swung open so suddenly that he stepped back, and the door ricocheted off the wall. She put her hand out to stop it slamming shut again.

Her chin was tilted down, and she was glaring at him. There was that familiar hunch of her shoulders - she was obviously incredibly uncomfortable, but still, his eyes widened a little as they slid over her slender frame.

"Wow," he said.

"I look ridiculous."

"No you look- no, all right, that's the one, just- hurry up, let's get it and go."

"I hate this," she said, "And I'm never going to forgive you," before she shut herself in again.

OoOoO

Sam bounced on the balls of his feet to stay warm, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. They were standing in the line up for the club and his blazer was around her shoulders, because the dress had no sleeves, and he wouldn't let her take her sweater with her. "They'll never let you in, you're already wearing fucking leather boots."

"Whatever," she'd said - clearly furious with him for betraying her this way. She'd barely spoken to him on the ride over, but it didn't matter. She'd get over it, and he was enjoying looking at her while she determinedly ignored him in the line up.

She wasn't exactly curvy, but the dress hugged her in all the right ways. She was fucking gorgeous. And she had no idea. He wanted to reach out and touch her, her shoulder, the small of her back, but he didn't. Not until they reached the bouncer.

" I.D. please," the man said.

"I- I forgot it," she said, like Sam had told her to in the car.

"Shit, really?" Sam said, already taking his back from the bouncer.

"Yeah," she answered.

"Ah… okay. Well, no, that's all right, babe, we'll just go home…" Sam wrapped his arm around her waist and started to walk away. Playing along, she went with it.

"Hey, wait," the bouncer said, glancing behind them, then inside the club - which was all dark lighting and pounding music. "I believe you, sweetheart, you can go in. You waited out here in the cold so… just don't let it get around, all right?"

"Sure," she said.

"Fuck, that's- amazing," Sam said, "Thanks a lot, man. Thank you, thanks," he continued over his shoulder as he practically pushed her into the club.

And just like that, they were in. The music was so loud that she could feel it shuddering in her chest. Sam's mouth was next to her ear, suddenly, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck raise as he spoke loudly, so she could hear him over the noise. "You know why he let you in, right?"

She looked at him questioningly.

Sam grinned at her, as he took his blazer from her shoulders and pulled it on. "Because you look fucking great."

She felt herself blush - all hot and uncomfortable and looked at the ground. They headed straight for the bar. "Wait for me here," he said - practically shouting in her ear over the music. "I'll be as quick as I can, and come find you. Don't go anywhere, okay?"

"Okay."

He pushed a twenty into her hand. "Just get something, even if you don't drink it."

And with that he was gone, leaving her in the most unfamiliar environment she could remember.

The bartender was there seconds later, asking what she wanted. "Uhm," she began, panicking. "R-rum and coke," she managed, the first thing that came to mind.

"Double?"

"S-sure,"

"You got it," he said, tossing her a coaster. The drink came seconds later. "That's twelve."

She handed him the twenty, and he gave her a dark look when she didn't tip him. She turned and looked anxiously for Sam, wondering how long this was going to take.

The club was hot, too loud. People pressed too close. She kept her eyes down so that no one came to talk to her. She tried to ignore the bodies writhing around her, practically fucking each other where they stood.

She couldn't even make out what the music was through the heavy bass. She drank the rum and coke because she had nothing else to do, leaving a bit in the bottom so that she didn't have to get another. It was gross anyway. She'd never liked pop.

Sam was beside her suddenly, touching her shoulder and making her whirl around on her stool. He smiled. "Ready?"

"Yes," she said, too eager, then something over his shoulder caught her eye.

Sam watched her face change. Those blue eyes focus, a flash of confusion, then they widened. He couldn't hear her when she said it, but he caught the name as it shaped itself on her lips. "Ginger?"

The girl, she'd only seen her for a second, had had long henna-red hair. She was dressed in tight purple and black - some knit thing stretched over her shoulders. Brigitte slid off the stool and pushed past Sam as though he wasn't there, her eyes fixed on the spot where her sister had disappeared. This wasn't the same as the illusions, because she'd always sort of called her then - Brigitte had needed her to be there, and then she was. But now, this time, she hadn't even been thinking about her. It had to be real. Sam was alive, why couldn't Ginge be too? She pushed through people, jostled this way and that. Sam called her name behind her, but she ignored him.

There it was again, that flash of light red hair.

Sam watched her disappear into the crowd as though she'd just evaporated. He followed her, but he couldn't slip through a crowd like she could, small as she was - and so fucking focused. Already, his chest was constricting, because it couldn't be possible. Right? And Brigitte was just setting herself up for disappointment. And he knew… he  _knew_  that it would crush her.

"Fucking fuck," he said, his eyes scanning the crowd, but there were too many people…

"Ginger, Ginger," Brigitte kept saying under her breath, and suddenly there she was; sliver of pale cheek underneath that wild, tangled hair. Brigitte reached out to touch her arm, but she turned, as though she could sense that touch, and-

It wasn't her. She had the same, pretty round face, the same long hair, but it wasn't her. Brigitte felt as though everything in her was crumbling to dust. She stopped dead in the middle of the floor, someone accidentally running into her, sending her a couple of steps sideways. Her eyes were still fixed on the girl, who hadn't noticed her at all, and she felt her whole world titling on its axis.

Ginger was dead. She was dead.

Sam saw her, finally. The only still body in the mass of moving people.

"Oh, Brigitte," Sam said, but even he couldn't hear it over the music. He reached out and touched her shoulder, fucking  _aching_  for her, and she didn't even look to see who it was. She knew. She turned to him and let herself be collected into his chest, his arms around her. Her hands were covering her face, which was pressed against his chest. He pressed his lips against her hair.

Around them, the sea of people danced, roiled, slammed together, and beneath them the floor shook with the pounding of the music, but they were still. He held onto her tightly, like he could hold her heart together, even though he knew he couldn't, and he was too late.


	7. Chapter 7

Brigitte was huddled under Sam's coat in the car, her knees drawn up under the dress. She was leaning against the passenger side window, and when Sam looked over at her, she was barely visible in the darkness of the car. Her face was buried in the folds of his coat, her dark hair spilling over the top. One hand was visible, a slice of startling white in the darkness. Under her, the lavender colour of the dress spilled onto the seat like blood. He wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure what. What did you say at a time like this?

His thoughts were running a mile a minute. It wasn't natural, was it, to see someone that you knew was no longer living, and to follow them like she had. There had been no question in her eyes once she'd said her sister's name. That was the part that frightened him a little. The fact that she had been  _so set_  on her - the red-haired girl - like Ginger wasn't really dead at all.

He glanced over at her again. She'd been so quiet. Hadn't said a word since the club. Amongst all the sticky heat, and the movement around them, she'd drawn away from him after what seemed like too short of a time, and started for the door, without looking back. Of course, he'd followed her.

He called her a couple times, crossing the street through the snow, but she ignored him, eyes fixed straight ahead. He had to force down the anger that swelled up in his chest then. It wouldn't do to be mad at her now. It would only make things worse.

In the car, she'd curled up on the seat, and he'd slammed the driver door shut after he got in and looked at her for a long while. She met his eyes once, then looked away.

"…Are you going to be okay?"

What a stupid, fucking question. She didn't answer. He sighed and started the car, then looked over at her again. She was staring out the passenger window with glazed eyes. She couldn't really be seeing anything. He'd grabbed his jacket then, from the rest of their stuff in the back seat, and draped it over her legs, her shoulder, and they'd driven off. Had been driving since three a.m.

It was close to 5:30 now, and he didn't know if she was asleep or not. It was still a long drive from here to Montreal, by the route he knew. The thought of all those hours, in the car with her like this made it seem like it would never end.

He wished he knew what to do. Twice he almost reached out and took her fingers. Her hand was lying on the car seat nearest him, amongst the folds of her dress like a dead thing, wrist up, fingers curled slightly. If it was Trina, he might have done it - but only because she was easier. A simple girl to be with. Brigitte was- entirely her own. In a sense.

OoOoO

The sound of tires on gravel was what woke her, and she sat up a little straighter, Sam's jacket sliding to her lap. She squinted in the sunlight, bringing a hand up to shield her eyes.

She looked at the car clock. It barely nine in the morning. How long had he been driving?

"Where are we?" she asked, her voice a little hoarse.

"Ontario," he said. He'd pulled over onto the side of the road and stopped. A couple of cars whizzed by on his side. "Still on the Trans-Canada. Obviously."

He leaned forward against the steering wheel, eyes closed. "I need to stop for a bit."

"Here?" she asked, panicking a little. Wide open spaces, trees on either side - that frightened her.

"We had to have left that thing way buck in fucking Winnipeg, Brigitte," Sam said, reading her mind. "There's no way anything could keep pace with us out here, even a lycanthrope."

"I know, but-" she began.

"I can't… I really fucking can't drive anymore. I've been awake for fucking… ever. Hardly slept coming to find you 'cause I was so scared you'd be gone when I got there. Let go, whatever…"

"Let me drive then."

"You can't."

"I said 'not legally'," she answered, already pushing her passenger door open. She crossed round the front of the car and he watched her, biting down on the inside of his lower lip.

She stopped in front of his door, and when he didn't open it, she knocked, once, against the glass.

"I don't like this, Brigitte," he said, and watched her shift her weight and sigh. He opened the door anyway, and got out. They switched places, and he watched her with growing nervousness, while she checked things incorrectly - not using her side mirrors at all, and pulled out onto the highway.

It was a little shakey at first, but then they hit a speed, and it was all right. "I won't even be able to sleep with you driving," he said, not joking around anymore. "Have you ever even driven on a highway?"

"No," she said, adjusting the rear-view.

"Jesus."

OoOoO

He did sleep though, until she reached over and shook his shoulder. They needed to eat - they needed somewhere where they could stop, get out of the car for a while. Somewhere they could quell the monster in their flesh and blood.

He sat up, and looked around. "Where's this?"

"Somewhere called Pearl."

Sam pulled out a map from the glove compartment and fought with it a moment until it flattened out against the dash.

"We're pretty far from… I mean we're not even in the middle of Ontario... fuck, why is Canada so  _big_?"

Brigitte took a breath, in and out. "I need some Monkshood…" he met her eyes. There was that strange rusted grey colour floating in her right eye again - like the wolf had been quelled, and was rising to the surface again. He pressed his lips together… yeah… let's find somewhere to stay. We've still got more than a day ahead of us until we're even in Toronto."

The place was decrepit looking on the outside, but fairly decent indoors. At least it looked clean. They dragged their belongings upstairs and deposited everything on the floor beside the bed.

Both of them sat on the mattress, crosslegged like children, and drew the yellow-coloured liquid from Sam's spice jar through a cotton ball.

"You want me to do it?" he asked her, but she shook her head, already reaching for the syringe. She was still wearing that dress, and in the sunlight, his eyes wandered over her arms

He watched her shoot up, amidst the needle scarring in the crook of her arm, and felt his stomach clench uneasily, like at the top of a Ferris wheel, the way it did when he saw too much blood.

She pulled the needle out, already shaking, her breath coming in short gasps, and he took it from her while she dropped down onto the mattress. He prepared his own hit, trying not to hear the little squeaks of pain she was making, then lay back beside her, gritting his teeth as the pain started, roared through him like fire.

It left them both panting, the way most people their age might do after an active session of lovemaking. With them, instead, it was a drug to keep them alive. Keep them human. Sam reached up and covered his face with his hands, his muscles twitching and weak.

After a while he rolled onto his side, facing her - so close he could smell the hotel soap in her hair.

"Brigitte," he whispered, and her eyes flickered open - both blue once again.

"At the club…"

"I don't want to talk about that," she murmured, closing her eyes again.

"It was like you really thought it was her, though. That's weird, Brigitte."

"I know," she muttered, turning her face into the mattress, pulling at the covers with her hand.

"I know she meant a lot to you-"

Brigitte turned her head to look at him again, her eyes narrowed. "She meant  _everything_  to me. Don't even pretend to try and understand that. I thought I saw her - it was a stupid- just leave it alone, Sam."

"But what I don't understand is-"

"You're here," she said shortly, as she sat up. "I thought you were dead, and when I saw that girl, I thought- like- maybe-"

He watched her take a shakey breath. "And it wasn't." she continued. "It wasn't her. That's all."

"You didn't even looked shocked," he said, pushing himself up as well, supporting his weight with his hand. "That's the weirdest part - it wasn't like 'What's my dead sister doing walking around in this club,' it was like- like you just didn't expect to run into her there.

"I… Sam…"

"Jeeze, fuck, Brigitte, if you can't fucking trust me then who?"

"Who said I wanted to?" Neither of them missed the low timbre in her voice - resonating in her chest, and her throat. Just a ghost of a growl under her shout.

She was frightened now, scared of herself, of her future, of the conversation they were having. He could see it in her eyes, the way she looked around the room like she was searching for an exit. He reached out and cupped her face in his hands, as gently as he could, without letting her pull her face away.

"We're in this together," he said. "And if you can't deal with that-" He took a breath, looked down, collected himself, then smoothed her hair with one hand. "There's other people out there like us, but we don't fucking know where they are. We can't fucking search them out, can we, and even if we did find someone, you could barely trust your sister-"

"I never doubted her-"

"That's a fucking lie, and you know it- my point is, I've only got you, and you… you can't do this on your own."

"I did just fine for the last year-"

"Yeah, until you ended up in a fucking  _clinic_ , Brigitte, you're smarter than this, listen to yourself. You would have killed everyone there, and then probably-"

"That wouldn't happen again!" she said, knowing she sounded ridiculous. Like a child. And she felt it, burning like shame in her cheeks.

"Don't- don't, don't, don't fucking do this," he said, letting go of her and pressing down with his hands, as though the air had weight. His fingers were tight and shaking. This wasn't good - this raised emotion - not in their state - not now. It had been too long since they'd had the monkshood, it wasn't kicking in yet - not as much as it should. "You  _need me around_ ," he finished.

"No I don't. Don't you do that stupid fucking "No man is an island," I don't want to hear it," Brigitte snarled.

"Fine," Sam said. "So what? I take this-" he got off the bed in one fluid motion and dug into his pocket and threw a wad of twenties onto the bed in front of her. At least four or five hundred dollars. "I take this fucking cash, and leave you here, and you'll be okay? Following every fucking red-haired girl you see, hoping it's going to be Ginger, because it's  _not_ , Brigitte, and she- fucked you over!"

"That wasn't her fault!"

"Don't  _give_  me that bullshit, Brigitte!"

"I fu-" she dropped her face into her hands. "I was seeing her- like an- like a- a hallucination or something. I knew it was- I never thought she was real, but when I needed someone-" Her voice broke and looked away. "She was there, and she's always been- I don't know what to do if she's not."

Sam watched her in silence, reeling a little from what she'd said, but trying not to notice it.

"Well…" he said finally. "You've fucking well got me, if you'd just  _let_  yourself let someone in."

She didn't look up at him. He gave her a long few seconds, then threw up his hands and walked out of the room.

She slowly and carefully gathered the money into a neat pile in silence - as thought she might hurt or frighten it, wiping the tears that fell onto the back of her hand into her dress.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam looked up from the couch, where he was sitting as Brigitte stopped in front of him and held out the wad of bills, all neatly collected.

"What?" he asked, not making any move to take the money.

He watched her eyes narrow, her face change. "What do you mean? Are you going to leave, or not?"

He looked at her for a moment. The seconds crawled by. "Are you serious?"

Brigitte sighed and looked away, dropping the bills at her side.

"Do you-" Sam stood up, and Brigitte took a hurried step back. "Do you actually- no. No, never mind. What do you want, Brigitte? Do you want me to stay or what? Because-" he heaved out a breath. "Because I'm not fucking just going to tag along, all right? If you don't want me around."

"That's not what I said-"

"Then what? What? Make the fucking decision, Brigitte, so we can stop wasting our time."

"Why are you putting this all on me?" She asked, her voice tight with anger. "Why do I have to make this decision?"

"Because, Brigitte… you're the one that doesn't fucking know. You don't know what you want."

"How are we even  _talking_  about this?" Brigitte asked. "This isn't even the problem here,"

"Then, what?"

"We- we were talking about Ginger! We were talking about what I saw at the club - I know she's not alive- I know that, and I know the hallucinations are just- hallucinations, I just-"

"I'm not… asking you to  _justify_  yourself!" Sam said, pushing past her and walking to the middle of the room. "I don't care if you're hallucinating your sister, of if you think she's fucking  _real,_  I'd stick around anyway, for you, but I'm- I just wanted to know what the fuck was going on, because getting you to tell me anything is like pulling fucking  _teeth_ , with you, Brigitte,  _fuck_! How are we supposed to work together, if it's me trying and trying and you're still in your own fucking world! You're on your own path and I'm left behind like some fucking idiot wondering what to do and you won't let me in! I might as well just fucking leave."

The panic she felt rise in her then was extreme. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and his name pushed its way past her lips with some difficulty, but she couldn't stop it either.

He looked at her, waited, as she stood there, in that gorgeous fucking dress, shaking - all wild-eyed, and frightened, and he almost gave up. Almost said 'fuck it' and just told her to forget it, but he couldn't. There was something in him, wild and desperate that had nothing to do with the monster that wanted her by his side so badly it fucking hurt. And here he'd essentially put his heart on the line for her - held it out, beating and red in his own cupped hands - to place it in her hands, only to find himself confronted with the snarling, dripping jaws of the beast.

She didn't say anything, she couldn't get anything out, although she was trying. "Fuck," he said, finally, "Fuck this. Keep that money, you'll need it. Jesus."

With that he turned and went into the bedroom, pulling out the monkshood in its jar and slamming it onto the nightstand. She followed him in, lingering in the doorway, hugging herself.

"I'll just take some of this and leave you the rest," he said. "Find a bottle or something."

"You're actually leaving?" she asked, all accusation.

"This isn't going to work out, obviously."

"You- no," Brigitte said, boiling over, finally, with all that bravestupid passion he'd only seen her have with Ginger. It almost startled him here, now. With just the two of them. "No, I see what this is," she said, standing in front of him and pointing, accusatory, her upper arm still tight to her chest. "You got what you wanted, you did what you had to with me, and now you're looking for the easy way out-"

Incredulous he sat back on the bed and looked at her, the monkshood jar still in his hand. He was about to open his mouth, contradict her and set her fucking straight when she turned, struggling with the dress as though it contained her like a vice. They heard the fabric rip as she tore it over her head, wearing nothing but her underwear and her worn out boots. His eyes moved over the glimpse of her chest before she pulled her sweater out of his bag, followed by the rest of her things, then he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands, letting the monkshood fall to the floor. His elbows were propped on his knees and he leaned forward, listening to her clothes rustle as she got dressed. The dress lay abandoned on the floor.

Finally… finally, he got up and left. The walk to the door seemed endless, but when he was there, swinging his bookbag over his shoulder, it had all come too fast. He couldn't look back at her, standing there in just a sweater that hung halfway down her thighs as he left, slamming the door behind him.

Brigitte stood still in the centre of the hotel bedroom for only a second, looking hopelessly lost, her hands shaking at her sides, before she collected herself. She walked around the bed and picked up the jar of monkshood, her eyes flickering over its colour, almost like liquid amber in this light. She let herself worry about him for only a second - about what he would do without it, and then it was back to business. Being solitary. Coping. Like before.

In the kitchenette, she pulled the garbage bag from the bin that they'd not used, and brought it back into the bedroom and put all her stuff in it. She left out a pair of jeans and socks which she laid at the end of the bed, then crawled under the covers, kicking her shoes off as she did, and curled into a tight ball, her fingers clutching at the loose fabric of the sweater. She'd have to get some sleep before she left - it was no use running on willpower alone. She couldn't think clearly then. When night came, she'd leave - find her own way. Like before.

OoOoO

BANG.

Brigitte sat straight up in bed, breathing fast. Something moved in the living room. It had found her. Panicking, she scrambled as fast as possible to the side of the bed, misjudging the distance in the dark and falling off of it, onto the floor. The lamp on the night table tipped, the lampshade hitting her head as it crashed to the earth. On both sides of the hotel room, there was silence.

Her heart was beating fast in her chest. She crawled towards her pile of stuff, her eyes adjusting a little to the darkness - how late was it? She must have overslept. Her hand hit the bottle of monkshood and sent it spiralling away across the room. She cursed over and over, feeling fear zinging through all her limbs. If she had to run, she wouldn't even have that.

As fast, and quietly as she could, she stood up and pulled her pants and boots on, forgetting her socks, unable to find them, then slowly, quietly picked up the garbage bag with the rest of her belongings, feeling compulsively for her journal through the plastic. It was there.

She looked behind her one last time for the monkshood, but it was nowhere to be seen. Maybe, she thought, it was dark enough that she could get out of the room without it seeing her.

It was her only shot. She took her first step towards the door when the bathroom light flicked on. It was muted quickly as someone… some _one_  shut the bathroom door enough to leave only a sliver of yellow along the hotel carpet.

She stepped out into the main room, staring across the room at the light framing the little bathroom door. Water ran. Her heart still racing, she made her way across the room, tripping a little on an untied bootlace.

She pulled the door open, and immediately flashed back to home, the bathroom, watching Ginger puke blood into the toilet.

Sam stood at the sink, shivering harder than she'd ever seen another person shake, with his hands immersed in blood in the porcelain sink.

It took her a second to realise that it was mostly water that hadn't drained yet. He looked up at her, eyes wide with fear. There was blood on his lips, his throat, the collar of the shirt he'd bought for the club. His hair was stringy and stuck with the stuff, leaving faint trails of red on his temples.

He said her name, and she dropped everything. The fight, his abandonment. She stepped forward and pulled his hands from the hot water by his wrists. They were pink and red from the heat of it. Steam was rising from the sink. "What happened?" she asked, realising there were no cuts - just blood on his hands.

"I d- I don't know, I just… I was so fucking- I just…"

"What did you do?" she asked, dropping his hands as he turned to her, clutching the sink behind him for support. Even his legs were shaking, he was trembling so hard, and she noticed shiny patches on his thighs where he must have wiped the blood from his hands.

"Th-th-the barn, there's one just down the- I don't know, I just… it was standing there, this horse… I didn't mean to, y-you know, I hopped the fence to fucking… pet it, I don't know, and I just-" he drew a breath that was close to a gasp, and turned away from her.

"I thought you'd be gone, or- s-s-something." His teeth were chattering, and all she could do was stand up against the tiled bathroom wall and think  _he took down a fucking horse, an animal that size, that fast, that strong…_

"Where is it?" she whispered.

"Still there, I just- I ran."

"We have to do something…"

"No," Sam said. "We have to get the fuck out of here."

"What time is it?" she asked.

"I don't know. You still have my watch."

And so she did, hanging on her wrist. Too big for her. 2:21 a.m.

"When did you do it?" she asked, as the sink sucked the last of the bloodied water down it's drain with a gurgle.

"I dunno. I puked my guts up for what felt like a fucking hour."

"Did you  _eat it_?" she whispered, eyes wide with terror. He met her gaze.

"I just kind of tore it to pieces." Suddenly he was sitting on the edge of the tub, his shoulders shuddering. He pressed his hand to his mouth to quell the noise of his breath - coming too harsh and fast as he began to panick, smearing his palm, his wrists, with more blood from his lips.

"You need to get the blood off," she said, taking charge - because she had to. "And we'll leave. Did you leave the car here?"

"Yeah," he said, vaguely marvelling at her ability to take action, and not just sit and stew.

"Hurry," she said. "I'll pack."

The water ran, and she rushed back into the bedroom, found her socks, the money, the monkshood, the room key. She shoved her bag into his once more, prepared a hit of the yellow liquid, and handed it to him when he wandered out looking pale and dazed in a towel.

She checked the bathroom for blood, then paced the main room while he got clean clothes and dressed. What now? Fuck, what now, what now?

She wasn't sure she could go through this again.

"Brigitte?"

He looked up when she appeared, hovering in the doorway. He was sitting on the mattress, with the syringe in one hand, but he was shaking so badly he couldn't hold the needle still enough to get the vein.

She crossed the room and did it for him, trembling herself, but not near so badly as he was.

"I love you."

He'd said it sudden and soft, and when she looked up from the needle, startled, he was holding her eyes, despite the pain in his clenched jaw, the poison, the "cure", the only fucking thing they had besides each other ripping through him.

She couldn't say it back. She couldn't even comprehend that right now, her mind reeling with so much else. How they were going to survive like this… how they were going to make it without killing someone… how long they were going to have to suffer this before there as an answer, or an end.

She reached out, instead, after she pulled the needle from his arm, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He moved forward in one desperate motion until they were flush against each other, his forehead pressed against her sternum, his hands clutching her sweater at her back. His body tensed and relaxed, and her stomach knotted, knowing what he was doing… that feeling of trying so fucking hard not to cry. She rested her chin on top of his wet hair and stared out the window.

What now?

They left their room key on the front desk on their way out.


	9. Chapter 9

The days, she felt, would never stop bleeding into each other. Car, motel, car, inn, car - driving and driving, but to where? And for what?

"What if Montreal isn't any different?" she asked, her fingers freezing on the steering wheel. She'd driven the last four hours to Sault Ste. Marie which was a little closer to the US Border than either of them would have liked. Who knew who was searching for them, and what might happen when they had to hand over their identification. Neither of them even had a passport.

Sam raised his forehead from his arm which was resting on the window and looked at her blearily in the morning sunlight.

"I don't know."

"I mean why can't we just… find something here… do some research?"

Sam chewed on his lip and looked across the street at the people milling about on the roads. Such normal looking people…

"Would it make sense if I said that Montreal just seemed right?" he asked, looking over at her, the sleeves of her sweater pulled down to cover almost her entire hands. The car was still running and it vibrated gently beneath them. He watched her chew on the inside of her bottom lip and felt a strange surge of lust in his belly. He hadn't even been thinking about that… in fact, until just now, he'd been too tired to do anything but sit up straight.

He knew that it wasn't right, immediately. That it wasn't a feeling that was coming from Sam. "Sam the Man," Sam the botanist, Sam the fucking Bailey Downs drug dealer… it wasn't even the Sam that had driven across the fucking country for this little dark-haired waif who carried the world on her shoulders, and only half-controlled fear in her eyes. It was something - as Brigitte had said, once, when the world seemed so much simpler - totally else.

He took a deep steadying breath. "Whatever we do, we gotta make some more monkshood, and… I don't know… what do you think? What do you want to do?"

She sighed. "I'm starving." He tried to remember the last time they'd eaten. Couldn't.

"Okay," he said, although he felt his own stomach churn at the thought of eating. He could still almost smell the blood from that animal, the way it had felt coating the back of his throat. He got out of the car quickly, too quickly and lit a cigarette with slightly shaking hands. The smoke quelled the nausea. He tipped his head back to the sky. Behind him, the car shut off, and he heard Brigitte get out. Her boots scraped on the pavement of the huge department store parking lot they'd stopped in, as she came around the front of the car to his side.

"Are you all right?" she asked after a moment.

He breathed out smoke. "I don't know… I don't feel all right."

"Why not?"

Sam scanned the parking lot for people within earshot. "Well… I'm turning into a fucking werewolf, and I just killed a horse." He laughed, suddenly, at how ridiculous that statement sounded.

From the corner of his eye, he could see her cock her head - the look of complete 'I'm unimpressed' crossing her features. "I mean" she said, in a no-nonsense tone, "'what feels wrong'."

He looked over at her, taking another drag from his smoke. "I can feel it, stronger now. Ever since last night… it's like I gave into something and it knows that."

"Don't talk like that," she said, breathless suddenly, speaking low.

"Well, you've been infected longer than me, and you… haven't… torn anything apart."

"No, but it doesn't mean it has to happen again - it doesn't mean you have to give into it, if you start- I can't be the only one in control all the time," she said, and when he heard her voice crack, he looked at her, full in the face this time, dropping his cigarette to his side.

There were tears in her eyes, and she quickly looked away, studying the people across the street without really seeing them. In one fluid motion he crossed the distance between them and caught up her face in his free hand, kissing her hard on the mouth. To his surprise, she yielded - she let him, and he lost himself in her, to her, because whatever he was, she was a safe place to be. He knew that, somehow.

The force of him, that insistent pressure, pushed her back against the car, which was still slightly warm from the engine in the cool wind of a late winter morning. He was cupping her face with both his hands now, and she could smell the smoke from his cigarette underneath the desperately familiar scent of  _him_  and when he slipped his knee in between hers, she left him, let him press against her hip.

At another time, she might have pushed him off. People were around, they might be watching, she didn't do this kind of thing with boys, or anyone... But now, she didn't push him away. It felt good, for once, to have someone hold onto her, to have someone she didn't detest so close.  _Want_  to be so close.

He made a little noise against her mouth as she took a chance, became a little daring, pressed her hips against his, and suddenly his hands were on her hips, on her ass, pulling her forward against him, and she could feel how badly he wanted her.

He hissed when she slid her cold hands up under his shirt, brushing his stomach, his ribs. His nose was pressed against her ear, her throat, teeth grazing her skin there, and she shuddered because maybe that was dangerous, maybe he could hurt her, but she didn't feel any of that from him, just need for something that wasn't blood, or to rip and tear at her flesh… it was something else. And fuck, but she felt it, too.

He jerked against her suddenly, pulling away and flinging the cigarette across the parking lot in one desperate, fluid motion. "Fuck," he said, pressing his burnt fingers to his lips, sucking on the reddened skin.

She fought back a smile and failed. "Classy."

"Yeah," he said sarcastically, inspecting the burn. "Suave and refined, that's me."

The moment had been ruined. There was no falling back into it now. They decided to find somewhere to eat, leave the car where it was, and he followed her from the parking lot to the street. She was so small and solitary in the passing crowd, hunched against the very presence of other people, and without thinking, he reached out to take her hand, connect her with himself. He just brushed the rough fabric of the sleeve of her sweater with his fingertips, but then pulled back.

It wasn't the time.

OoOoO

The plan had been to get to Barrie, Ontario, get some sleep, and from there, power through a day's worth of driving to get to Montreal, but they ended up pulling over on the side of the highway, and after a moment, Sam shut the engine off, plunging them into darkness, and silence.

Without even undoing their seatbelts, they dozed for a bit, Brigitte huddled with her arms tucked between her thighs and her body in the passenger seat, and Sam hanging onto the steering wheel with one hand, his forehead resting on his arm.

"Do you think we'll freeze to death?" Brigitte asked, forcing him awake maybe an hour and a half later.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Maybe we should keep going…"

"I don't really want to," she murmured, undoing her seatbelt and falling against the window and looking at him, twisted almost sideways in her seat.

"I hate driving," he mumbled into his palms before leaning back. "What's that?"

He was staring out the windshield and she jerked to attention, staring out into the pitch dark.

"What?" she whispered.

"It's right in front of us, on the shoulder there." Sam said, eyes fixed forward. She couldn't see a thing.

"I don't-"

Sam fumbled for the keys in the darkness, and turned the car on, and her racing heart slowed a little. Two deer stood, shoulder to shoulder on the side of the road about ten feet ahead. Both of them raised their heads and looked up with big, frightened eyes at their car.

Sam shut the lights off again, and when her eyes adjusted, she couldn't pick them out in the darkness.

"You can't see them?" Sam asked, his voice soft and strange.

"No."

She heard him shift to look at her and just for a second she caught it, the yellow-green gleam of animal eyes in the night. Sam's eyes. She pulled in a sharp breath.

A car was coming from the other way and they watched the deer dart across the road and disappear to the other side. The vehicle whooshed past, and when the silence settled in again, and the darkness, and the night.

"How far ahead can you see?" she whispered.

He looked forward, into the darkness. On the skyline she could make out the tips of a couple of trees, nothing else.

"I could drive without headlights right now…" he murmured. "You couldn't… could you?"

She shook her head.

"Fuck, Brigitte."

"I know, it's okay, just don't panic."

"'Don't panic'?  _Fuck_ , Brigitte!"

" _Sam_."

He met her eyes, and looked for all the world like a human. The animalistic gleam was gone, and it was just them, like two frightened kids, staring at each other in the dark.


	10. Chapter 10

Brigitte was not a stranger to what you could do with men. She had read and seen plenty - knew what you could do with your hands, and with your mouth. That didn't mean she felt that she knew how to do it.

And yet she found herself thinking about it, here, now, sitting in worn-out, run-down café whose patrons were just as pale-faced and tired looking as the walls of the building. The only sound was the buzzing of the unforgiving florescent lights, and a fuzzy radio station playing somewhere in between the Jazz station, and the Cantonese talk-show. They'd made it to Toronto, barely speaking a word to each other. Sam was lost somewhere inside himself, and she'd realised with a jolt, a few hours ago, that this side of Sam was not a side that he himself was unfamiliar with.

Of course, this silent, closed off version of Sam had probably never been because of a mythical, fucking impossible transformation before.

She'd tried talking about it, once. Somewhere in between Barrie and Toronto, but he'd just grunted a sound and turned away from her in the passenger seat and pretended to sleep.

So here they were, nursing lukewarm water that only tasted vaguely of coffee, and Brigitte found herself staring down at the stained, warped laminated menu because it was easier than looking across the table at Sam, and wishing that she'd opted for hot chocolate instead. At least that would have some flavour to it.

Maybe she was only thinking about the menu to stop thinking about sex.

She couldn't remember, ever, being in a situation where she'd had to force sex out of her mind. Where her stomach tinged with a strangely pleasurable sensation when she thought about Sam's mouth on hers yesterday, her body pressed against the car, his hands holding her hips…

And why, she wondered, was she thinking about sex now, when there were clearly much more important things to think about, like the fact that soon she might have something on her hands that was more wolf, than guy.

"If…" Sam said suddenly, startling her from the menu, and her own thoughts so that she looked up at him slightly wide-eyed across the persistently beige tabletop. "… this goes too far…" he was holding his fork, brandishing it slightly as he spoke, but he wasn't meeting her eyes yet.

Then suddenly he was, and she sat up a little straighter, feeing panic explode inside her chest - but she didn't let it out.

"… I want you to promise me that you'll run."

"But-"

"And…" he took a deep breath. "Don't let me-"

"Don't- don't you dare fucking- finish that sentence," she said, her eyes hard, mouth tight. He recognised that look. It was the look she'd given him in the closet at her house, last year - both of them terrified out of their wits, making monkshood that she believed would cure her sister. It was the fierce way she'd looked at him when he suggested he give Ginger the cure - defiant. One hundred percent steadfast in her decision. There was no arguing with her when she was like this. It was the moment when he realised that he was in love with her. The very second. He'd wanted to kiss her then, despite the terror roiling in his gut, and the monster outside.

He'd never met a girl so true to who she was, so fierce in her love for someone else. So determined. So fucking odd.

He felt his belly twist again, looking at her now, in the terrible diner that smelled like grease and burnt coffee.

"You can't let me turn into that-" he whispered, barely audible.

"You can't ask me to kill you, I've already got fucking blood on my hands," she said, struggling into her jacket and leaving. He didn't hesitate. He slapped a five down on the table and went after her, into the billowing snow.

"Brigitte."

She whirled on him so fast he almost slipped backwards on the slushy ground.

"I had to kill my sister, and now you're asking me to do the same thing to you, you've got another fucking thing coming," she said, her eyes dark with fury, and then she was marching off into the darkness, towards the car.

"She didn't have a chance," Sam said. "You know that what you did made her better off!"

She wrenched the car door open and climbed inside, and he rushed around to the passenger door, barely able to slam it shut before she backed up without looking.

"Jeeze, be careful!" he said, twisting in his seat to see how close they'd come to hitting anyone. Luckily there was no one out.

She pulled onto the highway, and they were driving again, a little too fast. Her knuckles were clenched white on the wheel.

They were silent a long while, before Sam muttered that he was 'fucking sorry'.

"No," she said. "You can't ask me to do something like that. If you want it done, if you've gone so far into this that you think you can't come out again, fucking do it yourself."

That hit him like a smack in the face - the thought of suicide - and just how far along in the transformation would he have to be before that was a real consideration? Where was the point of no return, and would he even know it when it happened? Or would his mind have changed before then?

"It was a stupid thought."

"Oh, really?" she asked, her voice high, sarcastic. "I'm glad you've figured that out. I would never ask that from you. Never."

He looked over at her, and thought about what his reaction would be to Brigitte asking him to kill  _her_ , if she went too far - before she killed another human being. He knew with absolute certainty that he wouldn't be able to do it.

"Brigitte… fuck, I'm sorry. I just- got myself into a downward spiral."

"That's not going to help. You feeling sorry for yourself, and all the things you're thinking- that's not going to help anything. You have to  _do something about it_ , and stop being so fucking…"

"I know." He interrupted, then took a long breath, in and out through his nose, looking out the window. She was driving the speed limit now, seemed to have relaxed a little. "That was my problem… it's always been my problem. I never do anything about anything, and then I sit and stew in it… just like my fucking parents."

"Then don't." she said.

"Easier said than done."

She looked over at him. "What about this? What about helping me with the cure, and Ginger, and finding me in Winnipeg, and now this, driving all the way to Montreal. What about all that?"

He looked at her with an overwhelmed emotion in his eyes. Too much to handle, happiness and disbelief, self deprecation and affection…. "Yeah… you know, Brigitte, did you ever realise that that was all for you?"

"Every day."

"What I said back in Pearl…" he began.

"I know," she said.

"I meant it."

"I know."

"I  _mean_  it."

She glanced at him, then checked the rear-view, changing lanes. "We have to get through this." She was picking at a hangnail, one hand still on the wheel, to avoid looking at him.

"Well, I gotta tell ya'," he said. "I'm clean out of ideas."

"We have to find something. There has to be something, otherwise there'd be a lot more of them. Of us."

Neither of them said what they were thinking - that maybe all of the other lycanthropes had been killed, and not cured.

"So are you giving up, or not?" Brigitte asked him.

"I never said I was giving up, I only said-"

"What you said was giving up before you'd even begun. I know. That's how Ginger and I lived the first fifteen years of our lives."

"What do you mean?"

"We had a pact." Brigitte said. "'Out by sixteen, or dead in this scene, but together forever.' I meant that we were going to have to escape Bailey Downs, and the fucking mediocrity of the suburbs, or we were going to kill ourselves."

"Fuck, Brigitte… I mean, I knew you two were-"

"Yeah. Well, obviously, that didn't happen. I decided not to give up."

"How old were you? I mean, fuck…"

"Eight. When we made it."

She could feel him watching her. "Spare me the pity," she said.

"It's not that."

"And just promise me you're not going to give up on me."

"… I promise."

OoOoO

"I heard about this place once," Sam said, "in a movie."

"Kingston?"

"Yeah… I did not picture it like this."

He was staring out a window across a huge lake, lit by the lights of the city so that there were wavering paths of orange and white in the water.

They were almost out of money. They had just enough gas to get them the three or four hours to Montreal in the morning, and maybe something to eat. If they were frugal about it, and so another inn or motel had been out of the question.

Instead, they'd found a hostel - a big place, with crooked staircases and creaky floorboards. There was a shared bathroom for their floor, and they were in a single room, paying double, because there were no double rooms left.

The bed was tiny. A twin, maybe smaller. "We'd be better off sleeping on the fucking floor," Sam said, turning to face the room again, and Brigitte.

"At least it's not the back of the car," she answered, to which he gave her a funny look and muttered something about 'wish it was the back of the car.'

She lingered in the doorway for a minute, while he met her eyes for half a second, then sat down on the bed, which creaked, and sagged under his weight and began to dig in his bags for the monkshood.

"I'm going to shower," she said.

Downstairs, at the front desk, they gave her towels and facecloths, and even a cheap bar of soap along with the less-than-polite attitude that said 'I hate my job,'

OoOoO

Sam ground up the monkshood, cooking it over the flame from his lighter. He could hear the shower at the end of the hall, and shifted slightly, wondering how she would react if he went with her, slipped into the same shower stall… just the two of them, the steam rising from the heat. It was the same, vivid kind of image he'd had of the two of them in the back seat of his car - her jeans pushed down to her ankles, shirt rucked up so he could just see the swell of her breasts.

When the monkshood started to steam he flicked the lighter off and filtered some into the syringe. The rest he put into the spice jar which they'd emptied.

He glanced at the door, wondering how long she would be, wondering if he had time to…

His fingers had just slipped to the waistband of his jeans when the shower shut up and he let his head fall back, cursing softly at the ceiling. She drove him fucking insane, she did, and he felt like they'd never have sex again.

They'd only done it once.  _Once_. It had been days...

The door banged open and shut and he looked over at her, her wet hair hanging about her face, clad in a towel that was white, and soft looking. She threw another one onto the bed. "If you need it. The soap's still in the bathroom."

She rushed to his bags, and he watched her from where he was sitting on the bed, watched her glance at the fresh monkshood, then at him. "Did you take any yet?"

"No."

She stood up, clutching her clean clothes to her chest, when he leaned forward on the bed, sudden, with a soft creaking of springs.

"Don't," he said.

"What?" she asked, barely glancing at him.

"Don't get dressed."

She met his eyes now, looking like a deer in headlights. He almost smiled at her. It might have been funny, if he hadn't still been so achingly hard. His eyes slid over her legs, where they disappeared into the towel. She had it pulled up so high he couldn't even see her cleavage - not that she had much.

He stood up and reached out to her, taking the clothes from her arms and dropping them back onto his backpack.

"Brigitte…"

"I didn't lock the door," she said. He ignored her, kissed her softly on the forehead.

Her skin was cool, and she shivered a little when he undid the towel and let it fall to the floor.

They were only half kissing, just little, short brushes of their mouths as he pulled her the couple steps back to the bed. He pulled away to pull the covers down. They were worn and thin, but clean, and she pulled her damp hair over her shoulder as she watched him pull off his shirt, his jeans, his underwear.

She shifted over to make room for him, and it occurred to him that, somehow, they had sex like they'd been doing it for years, undressing like this - none of it really 'in the heat of the moment' but more calm, comfortable… fucking lovely.

He loved the way she shifted over for him, almost pressed against the wall in the narrow bed. The springs protested their every movement, as he knelt on the bed, and pulled the covers up, and slid his arm around her, pulling her close.

She was constrained, tentative still, but willing, he could feel that. In the way her tongue slid against his, her teeth slid over his lower lip, making his cock twitch.

"Do you like it?" he whispered as she shifted, and he covered her with his body, "or…?"

"I don't know," she whispered back. "It hurt, last time."

"It gets better."

She smiled at him, that strange, half-smile. "How do you know?"

"Well unless Trina was faking… let's not talk about this."

"You brought it up."

"Shh," he whispered against her mouth, then pulled away, just long enough to get a condom, roll it on in the fading light.

"The monkshood," she said, her eyes following him to his bag, the lighter, the syringe.

"Later," he murmured, sliding his hand up her cool thighs to the heat between them.

"You were so worried about it earlier- nnhn." He watched her eyes flutter shut as she arched her head back a little. He leaned down and kissed her right breast, sliding his tongue over her nipple, then moved to the other, sucking gently. When he pulled his hand away, his fingers were slick, and he moved over her again, sliding into her slowly, easier than before, but she still clutched at his arms, making little gouges with her fingernails.

He pressed against her, inside her, as far as he could go, and when he began to move, she made a little sound of pleasure.

It felt strange, she thought, to have someone inside her like this. She was hyper aware of it until he pressed into her like he did, rocking in fast little movements, barely there. He hit something in her, deep inside, that made her breath catch, and her lips part in a silent gasp. The springs under them creaked relentlessly, and outside the door they heard a small group of people walk by, talking and laughing. The walls here were paper thin, and suddenly she was pressing her hands into his shoulders saying "Shh, careful, ahh, careful," but she was almost laughing.

He smiled, pressing his face into her neck, slowing his thrusts until they were long, slow. The springs were quieter, less obvious, and he pulled almost all the way out of her heat, then entered her again, and she let out a sound that tingled in his spine - a long, soft sigh of pleasure.

"Oh, Brigitte," he murmured, continuing the motion, sinking into her again. He might have felt stupid at that utterance if he wasn't so caught up in her.

They were almost one person, clutching each other, his arms under her shoulder blades, holding onto her shoulders with his hands, her arms tight around his back, and they were rocking and rocking, trying so hard to keep quiet. Her hands were against his lower back, fingers fluttering, strangely pointless gestures - pressing harder - relaxing.

"Tense up," he said against her ear.

"You said- hunh, fff -uck- relax,"

"Just do it,"

He felt her clench around him and moaned against her mouth, and then he was kissing her, and her hands were pressing hard against his hips, and she was saying "OhGodohfuckohGod," and suddenly she stilled against him, her entire body tense, and shuddering, her breath paused in her throat as she came.

He clutched at her, pressing his lips against her throat, kissing her there, sucking at her skin, and he pushed into her, both of them no longer giving a damn about how much noise they made, how indiscreet they were being, and he came, hard and sudden and long, his mouth hot and wet against her throat.

She was still shaking after he'd pulled out and gotten rid of the condom. He pressed up against her, flush against her side and slid his fingers up her belly, between her breasts. "All right?"

"Oh yes," she whispered on an exhale, and he laughed and touched her jaw, turning her face gently to kiss her.

 _I love you_ , he thought, as she drifted off to sleep beside him,  _I love you_ , he pressed his face briefly into her hair.

 _I love you_  he thought, as the shadows deepened, and he noticed, not for the first time, the detail and depth with which he could see in the darkness.


	11. Chapter 11

Montreal was strangely not what Brigitte had expected it to be. It was older looking, more crowded, and you could walk down any street and feel like you were in a different part of the world, there were so many different languages and cultures around her. She felt like a country kid in the big city, and it made her feel small and strange, but oddly, it also made her feel less uncertain. She didn't get that uncomfortable tightness here that she felt when talking to people in Bailey Downs - other than Ginger of course. And now, Sam.

Maybe she was just getting used to it - being less of a decided outcast. Maybe here people hadn't labelled her as a freak, and so they didn't treat her as such. And yet, still, overwhelmed as they both were by the city, the press of people, the occasional language barrier - she felt something that she hadn't felt in a very long time. A sense of belonging. Not, perhaps, to the city itself, but just somewhere where she felt less out of place, less at odds with everything.

And yet, things weren't that bright and lovely. Their days - the four they'd been here, consisted of nothing but sitting in their dark hotel room, cooking monkshood, reading the paper in silence. Sam was distant, off. It bothered her, made her feel almost constantly anxious. They hadn't spoken about it.

He had scored some drugs - natural and hard - off of a few different people, and each night they pulled on their coats and went out into the frigid air to sell. The night clubs here were easier - more casual on the stretch that they were on. Their hotel was big, spacious, slightly gritty, but was bedbug free. They hoped. They didn't have to hit up the fancy-dress clubs in order to make a few dollars because the night life here actually amounted to something - there were queues outside bars from 9pm onwards, everything from people in tattered corduroys and ragged jeans to girls who were tanned despite the snow on the ground in sparkling dresses and too much makeup.

Most nights Brigitte went with him - hitting club after club. On their third night, after the third one she dragged her boots to a stop in the snow outside a little café - one of the ones that were French without screaming it. There were, thankfully, no chequered table cloths, no posters for the Tournée du Chat Noir.

Sam walked a few paces and she could tell by the slight tilt of his head that he knew he'd lost her but he didn't stop. A strange, sudden anger flared up inside Brigitte's chest and she stood her ground. He'd been like this for too long now. Since they'd left Kingston. He'd barely spoken to her at all, strange and irritable, and disconcertingly off in a way she couldn't place. Just like Ginger had been - on edge.

Of course, she felt it too, the strange, sharp changes. Scents hitting her stronger, making her head reel sometimes with the intensity of them, the sheer abundance. The subways made her feel nauseous - they smelled of years of piss and sweat and people's frustration which was a strange mix of old dust and something sour. And they were too warm, the subway stations, too crowded - the fluorescent lights tired her. They'd taken to walking above ground as much as they could.

He was almost a full four yards away before he stopped, and rounded on her. "What?"

"You're…" she began, then thought it through. An accusation right away might not be the best way to go about this. "Is there something like… I dunno, wrong or are you just…"

"Yeah," he said, breathing steam into the air and shoving his hands into his coat pocket, laughing humourlessly and shaking his head at the night. "No. No, nothing's wrong, Bee Fitz," he said, walking back to her, until he was talking right in her face, his breath hot on her skin. "I'm just turning into a fucking werewolf, that's all," he hissed.

"We're in the same boat, here; you… being angry about it isn't going to help anything," she said, a little startled by his aggression.

"No, we're not, we're not in the same fucking boat, because I've already killed something, and you- you're just… I don't know what you're doing."

"I'm  _controlling_  it," she snapped. "I'm  _thinking ahead_? And all we've done is sell drugs since we've come here - we don't even leave the fucking hotel room in the daytime, Sam, what are we supposed to be doing here? I thought we were going to be looking for a cure."

"Yeah well, what if there isn't one, Brigitte, huh? Did you ever think about that?"

Her eyes searched his, and he felt his stomach plummet as he watched hers darken with disbelief and anger, and worst of all, disappointment. He almost apologised. If he was normal, if he was just a little more of a human being, felt just a little more like Sam, he would have, but something else was at work inside him.

Suddenly, he was shaking with the effort it took not to shove her away from him - because if he did that he wouldn't be able to see that look in her eyes anymore. If he did that, at least some of this tension and frustration would be released. If he did that, though, he might hurt her, and he would certainly make her lose her trust in him.

She could tell - she could smell it on him, waves of anger, danger. Instinct told her to back away. She didn't. "There has to be something."

"Yeah?" he asked. "And what makes you so sure?"

She tilted her head to the side and said, bold as brass, "Don't be an asshole."

Something dark, and hot and wild burst apart in him, and a part of his human mind shut down - went dark and shuttered. It scared him, of course there was fear, but that was dulled, pushed down and buried by the thing that rose up in him now. There was no thought involved, no rationalising. One moment he was standing in front of Brigitte, both of them shivering and tense against the cold and their own emotions, and then next he had her pressed up against the brick wall between the café and its neighbouring building, her hands the only thing that had stopped her face from slamming into the brick.

He smelled the sharp tang of blood from her skinned palms and wrists and it only made him press her up harder against the wall. The wind had been knocked out of her, and he could feel her struggling for air, and yet it was so easy, it was  _so easy_  to let the beast blot out the human part of his mind now that he'd let go.

"Get off me," she said finally, after dragging in a breath. He pressed his palm against the back of her neck, underneath her hair and pressed her harder against the brick.

"Get  _off_ me," she said again, more frightened, but somehow more in control, angrier.

It was as though his hands didn't know how to unclench from her arms. As though he couldn't remember what it meant to step away, much less how to do it. It was her that pushed off from the wall and sent him back with surprising force. He could smell the blood from her hands, the fear from her skin. He imagined what it would feel like to run his teeth over her throat, and he didn't know if that thought was violent or sexual, and he pulled in a great, shuddering gasp.

"Brigitte…"

"Fuck you," she said.

They eyed each other from opposite ends of the alley. He felt sick and he was shaking - the sweat that had sprung up on his body had grown cold, and in the winter air, it felt like he'd just walked through an icy rain.

"I'm sorry, I…"

She wasn't listening, she was already walking out, already leaving him there. He reached out to take her hand, but she wrenched her arm away and was walking at a brisk clip down the street.

He tried to follow her, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She forced her way through the clusters of people outside the clubs and bars on the next street up, until he couldn't see her at all - couldn't follow her fast enough - despite his attempts.

Fuck he'd really screwed up now.

He stood on the street corner, staring at all the people, feeling the music pulse through his chest, even here, away from the sound, the press of heat and bodies.

He could have hurt her worse than he did. Was he trying to? He didn't want to know the answer, because it didn't matter if it was him or the wolf, the fact was that it had been so very fucking wrong.

His breath was coming shorter, faster, and turning away from the noise, the people, he reached out and pressed his hand against the pole of a stop sign, cold as ice under his palm. Sam leaned over and vomited into the gutter, retching until there was nothing else to be brought up.

OoOoO

She shed her jacket inside the club, b-lining straight for the bathroom, as best she could, squeezing in between bodies and being jostled side to side by dancers, sloshing their drinks onto the floor, each other, their shoes.

She washed the blood from her hands in the awful fluorescent lit bathroom, relishing the sting from the soap because it made her forget everything else.

She understood his impulse. She'd felt it herself. She'd taken out her anger on Beth Ann, but it has scared her, hurt her feelings more than anything - because it was Sam, and who the fuck else could she trust? Whirling around, she slammed her fist into the bathroom stall door - again, again, again.

When she pulled back, there was already a bruise blossoming on the side of her hand. She stared at it for a moment, then looked up at her reflection in the mirror, her cheeks red from the cold, her nose running, her hair wild and staticky. She passed her sleeve under her nose, and headed back out into the mess of people and music.

Someone caught her by the hand, insistent, but gentle. She turned back towards him, ready to try and start over - she had no one else now, after all, but Sam and herself, and she wasn't sure she was ready to face all this on her own again.

Tyler looked exactly as she remembered him. Blonde and smirking. Self assured. He tightened his hand on hers, but she was too shocked to run. He leaned down close, his lips next to her ear so he could be heard over the music.

"Fancy meeting you here."


	12. Chapter 12

Frantically, perhaps foolishly, she looked around the club - bodies everywhere, lights flashing a multitude of different colours, favouring purples and reds, as if she expected to see Alice, or Ghost, or any other members of Happier Times Care Centre. And then, for another horrible moment, she wondered if she'd cracked - was just imagining this, because how could Tyler be here, now?

He pulled back and grinned at. "You never struck me as the clubbing type," he shouted over the sound. She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm guessing you're not gonna let me buy you a drink, huh, Brigitte?"

She turned to leave - searching out the exit amongst the chaos. His hand pressed tighter on her own and she turned back to him with eyes blazing. "You can either stay here, or come, but let me go,"

Knowing his presence was being accepted, he let her go, and followed her, close on her heels outside. She pulled her jacket on around her - the wind seemed colder now, after all the body heat inside. Tyler stood in only jeans and a t-shirt, hugging his torso and shifting from foot to foot on the sidewalk.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her.

"What are  _you_  doing here?" she counted.

"Ah, ah. I asked first," he said, smug, despite how cold he looked. She frowned. "Don't you have a coat?"

"Yeah," he said, but it's in the club. I figured you'd make a run for it if I stopped to get it."

She sighed, and looked around again, but she saw no one else she knew and… no Sam.

"Listen… I'm not looking for you, I'm just here on vacation. They've got good a great nightlife. I'm not on duty, so I won't say I saw you… Seriously, Brigitte. Now, I'm just gonna get my coat. Will you wait for me here?"

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I'll buy you something to eat," he said, his eyes flickering over her face. "You look like a starved animal."

OoOoO

She didn't know why she waited, really. Perhaps it was because she didn't want to go home to face Sam… or worse, go home to find him gone. She wasn't sure what had happened between them. It was all tensions running high, exhaustion, hunger, not to mention frustration with one another, their situation, and… well she was sure she hurt him. She never meant to… but when he said those things to her, that he loved her, she didn't know how to say them back. She wasn't sure she could, and still be honest about it. And she wasn't sure she wanted to.

On top of all that, there was the beast in each of them, straining now, to be set free, for the human mind to let go, to break.

But now, she was sat there at the little French café she and Sam had passed earlier and there was a mug of coffee in front of her, and she'd already wolfed down the food the waitress had brought out, despite how mediocre it was. Tyler sat, with a bottle of beer that he hadn't touched, across from her, without taking his eyes off her. It made her uncomfortable, but she ignored it as best she could, while she ate.

Finally, she looked up, fork still in hand, and with a glare, she asked " _What_?"

"Don't be so rude, I just bought that food for you."

"Then stop staring at me."

"I must admit," Tyler said, "The way you escaped the clinic, even I wouldn't have guessed you could do it so well. It was mid-afternoon before anyone realised you were missing. What did you do?"

"I'm not going to talk about this."

"Marcus was the one to discover that the door on the East side didn't lock anymore. We've fixed it since. So… who was your accomplice? It had to be someone on the outside."

"I didn't," she said. "I don't know anything about that door."

"You're a terrible liar, did you know that?" Tyler asked, leaning back in the booth. She stared at him, open mouthed. "I didn't come here with you for an interrogation," she said finally.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, leaning forward again, uncomfortably close to her across the table. She held her ground, didn't lean back. "Then what did you come here with me for, Brigitte?"

Her jaw tightened and she moved back. "Thanks," she said, starting to pull her coat on. "I have to go now."

"Not so fast," Tyler said. "If you don't want me to tell the clinic where you are, then you owe me something."

"Fuck you," Brigitte said.

Tyler produced a cell phone. "I could call them right now."

Brigitte lashed out, quick as a flash and knocked the phone to the ground, then slammed her foot down on it, without even thinking. When she raised her boot, it was in two pieces.

"Jesus!" Tyler said, standing up and looking at her. "Calm down, I'm just fucking with you! I already said I was off-duty."

The other customers were looking at them now, and Brigitte quickly pushed her arm through the other sleeve of her coat and headed for the exit.

She heard the bell on the café chime as Tyler followed her out onto the street. "I want you to leave me alone," she said, still walking.

It surprised her when he caught her shoulders, pulling her around to face him. "Brigitte, listen. Honestly, I just want to know if you're all right. I have friends here, they could give you a place to stay. You don't look well, your eyes are all fucked up… listen, I know that nothing's gonna work for you if you don't wanna help yourself, but you can start somewhere that isn't a clinic."

She was startled by his sincerity, immediately thrown by it enough to not pull away. Her eyes searched his as he reached up and fixed a strand of her hair, pulling it away from her face.

"The last thing I need is a clinic. I'm sorting this out on my own… if you try to help, it'll only make it worse."

"Yeah?" Tyler asked, "why's that?"

"Because," she answered. "You have no idea what's wrong with me."

"No, I don't, but I'm trying to help-" he smiled, annoyed, and shook his head. "Brigitte… you're going to die if you keep going on like this."

"That's the least of my problems," she said, tried to turn away, but he held her fast. "Now let me go."

" _Brigitte_ -" Tyler said, reaching up and cupping her face in his hands. She stared at him, wide-eyed. "Look, there's a reason why I found you here. You need help."

"Why do you care?" she growled at him. "And you said you weren't looking for me."

"That's not what I mean… and because… I don't know," he said, "But, Brigitte-" he inhaled, then forced out a breath, moved down, as though to kiss her. She reeled back, untangling herself from him. The look on his face was almost like an upset little kid. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but not- she didn't feel like this with Sam. Right now she felt panicked, confused. She took two steps backward, then turned and began to walk away.

She heard Tyler call her name, first. Sharp, alarmed. And the car, it came out of nowhere. She had barely turned around when it slammed into her left hip and sent her spinning.

She cracked her head on the pavement, and the lights of the city went out.


	13. Chapter 13

The ceiling was dotted. Tiled, and suddenly Brigitte's whole body contracted in panic, because she was back at the clinic. She sucked in a breath that sent electric pain through her, all the way down to her fingertips and to the top of her head.

She turned her head when she heard a noise, her eyes wide, frightened, and Tyler stood up from his chair against an unfamiliar wall, and came to her side. He was pale-faced, tousled, and he come to stand at her bedside and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't move, shit."

She looked around her, realising she was groggy, strange feeling, and then she realised she wasn't there. The clinic. The space was different. It was a hospital… it came back to her then, Sam- how strange he'd been, the club, Tyler, the car.

Outside the sun was shining brightly.

"What time is it?" she asked, moving to sit up. Tyler pushed her back down.

"Brigitte, listen to me. You've lost a lot of blood, there was a lot of internal bleeding, okay? You've been out for almost two days… they've had to give you a transfusion… stitches. You can't be trying to run away this time, all right?"

"Have you told the clinic?" She asked, her heart racing so fast she thought she might be sick.

"Of course not," he told her, and she lashed out, grabbed his wrist and pressed, but maybe because she was so weak, it didn't have the effect she wanted it to… werewolves were stronger than humans after all, but she could barely get her fingers to close, it seemed. He met her eyes, a vague glimmer of amusement in his own.

"You better not be lying to me," she said.

"I  _promise_  you, I did not call the clinic," Tyler said.

"I need to get out of here," she said, letting go of his wrist, brushing the tape covering the needle in her hand, and in the crook of her elbow. She needed monkshood.

"I also managed to convince them not to call the Montreal Clinic, because they thought you were suicidal… your arms…" he said, pulling her fingers away from where they were picking at the tape.

"At this point, I'll be surprised if you can even walk. Wait til you see the bruise on your left side, it's enormous."

She glared at him, then looked away, around the room. There was only one door, and she could tell from the expanse of sky out the windows that she was very high up.

Suddenly, her heart clenched. "How long did you say I've been here?"

"Tonight will be two days," Tyler answered, and she reached out and grabbed his wrist again. "Where's my clothes?"

"I don't know, the nurse took them."

"There's a key card in there, for our hotel on St. James Street. You have to go, get Sam, tell him where I am."

"Who?"

"Please, he's… he was the guy that came to the clinic."

"The one that helped you escape you mean?" Tyler asked, but the joke became serious as he voiced it. Brigitte was looking at him so desperately, that it wasn't even funny to him anymore.

"All right," he said, "But don't you do anything stupid. I'll be back."

OoOoO

Sam paced the room in circles. Brigitte wouldn't have left without the monkshood, he couldn't have scared her that much. Right? Or was it betrayal. Had she given up on him? He whirled around and sent his fist into the bathroom door, bending the wood in as easily as if it had been soaking for hours. He shook his hand as he pulled it out, knuckles scraped, bleeding a little and pressed them to his mouth.

He'd gone out and looked for her. When she didn't come back by the next morning, he'd started to really panic, because what if something had happened? Brigitte wasn't irresponsible… she would have told him, right? She would have at least come to get her stuff…

It was evening again. Sam hadn't slept well the last two nights. In fact, last night, he hadn't slept at all. He'd gone out twice today, searched the streets desperately - kept coming back to the hotel room, praying she'd be there, but she wasn't. Not a sign of her.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and Sam hesitated… why would she knock? Unless she'd lost her key or-"

He crossed the room just as the lock beeped and the door opened, and for the first time, he faced Tyler, both of them stopping dead and holding each other's eyes. There was a threat in the air that Sam couldn't quite place, and his shoulders tensed to the point of aching.

"Who are you?"

"Tyler. And I'm guessing you're Sam?"

Tyler… "Tyler from the clinic," he said, with surprising calm, despite the hatred that was boiling in his belly. This was the guy that had done those things to her, this was the fucking guy. What was he doing here?

"Yeah, listen, Brigitte's in the hospital, there was an accident. She asked me to come get you."

" _What happened_?" Sam asked, already pulling his coat on, gathering his key card, the bag of their stuff, the syringe from the table. He met Tyler's eyes as he zipped it into the side pouch, stood and swung the bag over his shoulder. Tyler had seen the needle. Kept his mouth shut.

"Car accident, but she's going to be fine. She should be," he said saying, as Sam pushed past him, out the door, without even bothering to shut it, which Tyler did, muttering "Where do you people come from?" under his breath.

"Where?" Sam called back to him, over his shoulder as he headed for the exit.

"About fifteen minutes from here. I've got a cab outside."

OoOoO

Despite his hatred, despite forcing himself not to send his fist through the guy's throat the whole ride there, Sam had to admit he had something of a silver tongue. Visiting hours were long over, but Tyler talked the nurse at the desk into letting both of them up to see Brigitte, and so, up they went.

Tyler reached the door first, pushed it open.

"Did you find him?" Sam heard Brigitte ask from inside, and he had to circle Tyler to see her. She was lit only by the fluorescent light over the bed, her hair dirty, hanging about her face, machines beeping, the IV…

There was a horrible moment of hesitation on both their parts, facing each other across the room like that. Neither of them knew where they stood with each other now. But then, Sam realised, they did. Because it had nothing to do with logic and sorting ones thoughts out in their head into grammatically correct fucking sentences. It was how they  _felt._ That was the important part. Not saving face, not meaningless words. He dropped the bag on the floor as he crossed the room to her and as carefully as he could, wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to him, and she didn't resist. He felt one small hand, her thin fingers, reach up to wrap around his back.

"I was so fucking worried. It's been days," he whispered into her ear, just loud enough for her to hear.

"I know," she whispered back. "I couldn't help it."

"You could have been more  _careful_. I'm sorry, Brigitte… what I did, I don't know…"

"I know," she whispered, tensing a little, and Sam remembered Tyler was still there. Behind them, trying to listen. They couldn't talk about those things. The wolf…

He pulled back gently, pushed her hair away from her face, and she ducked her head down, almost shy. Her eyes flickered to Tyler.

"I'll leave you two alone," he said, but she watched him hesitate before he backed out the door and shut it silently, and something in her stomach twisted. She knew how that felt, to be the odd person out.

Her eyes flickered to Sam's again, and they didn't even have to speak. He went to his bad, retrieved the monkshood. Neither of them spoke as he prepared her arm, on the opposite side of the two needles giving her blood and that drip. Maybe there was morphine in it, who knew.

The pain that shot up her arm was different from before, from all other times, and her fingers came down over Sam's to stop him pressing the drug into her system. She shut her eyes as pain exploded behind them - a different kind of intravenous pain. Not the bone-achingly deep one that she felt before.

"Something's wrong," she gasped.

He quickly pulled the needle out. "Maybe it's the…" but he couldn't think of anything that made sense.

Brigitte raised her hands to her hair, shaking.

"Want me to call someone?" Sam asked, still crouched by her bed, the back of her hand cradled in her palm, the tourniquet still around her upper arm.

"No," she said firmly.

After a few minutes the pain seemed to lessen.

"What the fuck?" she whispered. "Maybe it stops working,"

"Fuck, don't say that," Sam said quickly, feeling his own heart start to race with fear.

"We always knew it would stop eventually. I- have to get out of here, I can't stay here."

"Right, okay," Sam said, and their eyes flickered to the machines attached to her, monitoring her. Once they were no longer attached to her body, they would only have minutes, maybe seconds to get out of the hospital.

"I don't know if I can walk," she whispered, trying to force that terrifying thought from her mind, but Sam wasn't looking at her, he was looking at the nearly empty bag of blood.

"A blood transfusion?" he murmured.

"Yeah, Tyler said-" suddenly her eyes widened.

"You don't think-"

"If it's a disease of the blood," Sam said, finally meeting her eyes. "Then you might not even be infected anymore."

A thousand impossibilities flooded her mind, but at the same time…

Well, what if he was right?


	14. Chapter 14

Tyler's voice rose, suddenly, outside and Sam and Brigitte jumped away from each other, their eyes on the door.

"Hurry," Brigitte said, as though she was reading his mind, and he gathered up the tourniquet, the monkshood, the syringe, and shoved it into his back just in time. The door opened, the yellow light from the hallway spilling into the darkness that had slipped, almost without their noticing, into her room - save for the one light above Brigitte's bed.

"What are you doing in here? This girl needs rest, visiting hours are long over." The man was tall, greying, with a moustache, and large glasses that flashed ominously when he raised his chin, his eyes on Sam, who was still crouched by his bookbag.

"I'm family," Sam said quickly, too quickly. Brigitte sucked her bottom lip through her teeth and nodded when the doctor looked at her. Behind him, Tyler shrugged and raised his hands as if to say  _Well, I tried_.

"And are you registered?" the doctor asked, seemingly intent on proving himself right.

"I didn't- I just heard now," Sam said. "I just wanted to see her."

"Who let you in here?"

"I don't know, I wasn't paying attention," Sam lied. He knew damn well which nurse Tyler had sweet-talked into getting them up here.

"You need to leave. You can see her tomorrow afternoon when we let her go home."

"Can- you should call me," Sam said. "I'll come get her," his eyes flashed to Brigitte, who looked both frightened and relieved.

"You can give the nurse at reception your contact information if you wish," the doctor said, and stared Sam down until he rose, slowly, and swung his bookbag over his shoulder.

"She's definitely being released tomorrow, then?" Sam asked.

"Barring further complications, yes."

"What complications?"

"Son, you've been in here long enough, it's time to leave, so I can do my job and attend to the rest of the patients awaiting my assistance. Out. And shut the door behind you."

Sam left, doing as he was told. Fuck,  _fuck_  he should have been thinking quicker on his feet. He met Tyler's eyes, teetering, it seemed, on thanking him for warning them as best he could about the doctor- what might have happened if he'd seen the monkshood, the needles… Brigitte most definitely wouldn't be leaving tomorrow, that was certain. She'd probably end up in another care facility, and then they'd be fucked.

Instead he just averted his eyes, because the hot anger, the ache in his very fucking bones that he got when he thought about what Tyler had done to her- what he'd made her do…

He turned and walked down the hallway, and he was all the way to the receptionist's desk, before he realised that he had no phone... and then realising that he couldn't really just put his name in here, could he? They'd be found… Helpless, he stabbed a hand through his hair and tried to think of something, and suddenly, Tyler was at his side, taller, imposing despite his slight figure. He leaned casually against the desk and before Sam could say a word Tyler arranged for them to call a number Sam didn't recognise, and it was Tyler's information under emergency contact and Sam didn't know whether to tear his throat out or thank him and he  _hated_  that. This guy was an enigma, strange.

Sam studied him, his profile. Tall, blonde. Typically good-looking. The kind of guy his parents probably wished he'd grown up to be. And working in a clinic instead of a greenhouse. Not on the run… not being taken over by something  _totally else_.

He turned then, and stepped outside the glass doors, wishing for a cigarette with every fibre of his being. He studied the floor until the doors swung open and he met Tyler's eyes.

Before he knew it, the phone was being pushed into his hand, and Tyler shoved his hands into his pockets. "I don't know how you managed to break down her fucking walls, but you've done something," he said. "She's all locked up like Fort fucking Knox, but you're in there. You really mean something to her. I didn't think anyone did."

Sam slid his thumb over the smooth casing of the cell in his hand and flipped it open, flipped it shut again. "So what, then?" he asked. "You're just gonna go on your merry way and pretend this didn't happen?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I'm gonna need that phone back, but yeah. She's yours, man, that's pretty obvious. She's too frigid for the rest of us, anyway."

He had the grace to flinch away when Sam pushed himself away from the wall, fast, but Tyler's hands were up, and a nurse had stopped, halfway down the hall to watch them for a second. When it was clear that nothing was going to happen, she disappeared.

"She's not the kind of girl who put up with the likes of someone like you," Sam snarled. "You think you can get away with that kind of shit?"

Tyler swallowed, looking nervous for a second. "Look-" he glanced around. "I'm not hurting them. I'm giving them what they want in exchange for a price. Nothing in this world is free."

"Don't give me that. They're in there to get better, and you're just feeding them their poison."

"Yeah?" Breathed Tyler, moving close. "Well so are you. What are you, her fucking dealer?"

Sam clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, staring him down.

"Are you gonna tell your clinic about her? Where she is?"

Tyler pressed his lips together, and for the first time, looked down. "No. It's not a place you'd want to be," he said. "Most of them are only there because it's just become their home. That's pretty sad. And Brigitte's not the kind of girl to fit in there."

"There's nothing wrong with her that they'd be able to fix."

Tyler cocked his head. "No… but what's wrong with her… the same thing's wrong with you, isn't it?"

"What makes you say that?" Sam asked.

"I guessed it. What is that shit you're shooting?"

"Listen," Sam said. "Thank you- for what you've done here, for- bringing her here, for finding me, and… thank you. All right? Give me your address, I'll get this back to you," Sam said, raising the phone. "The rest's none of your business."

"Fine," Tyler said, amiable as usual. Sam still hated him, but maybe just a little bit less.

"Thank God for Canada," Brigitte said, as they climbed into the car outside the hospital, she a little stiffer, a little slower than normal. The receptionists hadn't I.D.'d Sam, hadn't even made sure he was anyway - they just sent her on her way with him, and that had been that.

"I've gotta give this back to Tyler," Sam said, setting the phone on the dashboard. Both of them were staring out the front window, not looking at each other.

"And then what?" she asked.

"I think we should leave."

"Montreal?" she asked.

"Yeah…" he said. "I mean… I don't know…"

"Worried about him calling the clinic," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

"We're gonna be on the run forever."

"Maybe."

She leaned against the passenger window and looked at him. He didn't meet her eyes.

"Nothing's healing as fast as it should," she whispered, and he glanced over at her.

"So what're you thinking?" he asked, whispering too - though he didn't know why.

"I'm thinking it's gone…"

Sam looked ahead and put the car in gear, without saying anything.

They didn't go to Tyler's. Not yet. Instead, they were sitting in another dark hotel room, so much like all the others, sitting facing each other on the bed, Brigitte curled against the headboard, her knees to her chest, and Sam, legs crossed Indian style in front of her.

He watched her press the knife to her wrist, against all those scars, and press down. Watched the blood come in silence. He handed her the bandages, and when she reached out for his hand, he didn't hesitate in giving it to her. Her hands shook more over his body than over hers, but the cut she made was as deep at hers. Just like her, they wrapped the gauze around and around his wrist and then, after she'd placed that and the knife on the night table their eyes met. He felt so much like a little kid, doing some blood-brother's ritual.

They were very quiet for almost a half hour.

She didn't know if he was mad at her for… for maybe being healed. Cured. Not like him, or… what?

She knew he was scared. Even as she placed the knife to her wrist she knew that it wasn't going to heal. She  _knew_  it. Not like it had before. Her entire body felt different, more fragile, but so much more real. So much more like what she remembered, before all of this had started, before pressing her hand to Ginger's hand in the greenhouse - becoming what her sister had become.

She stared down at her fingers, idly picking at the loose threads on the duvet cover, and then, suddenly, his hands were on her thighs, so gentle, and he pulled her down, mindful of her bruised hip, her bruised ribs.

Maybe it had saved her- the illness, before it was drained out of her body like a poison, and she was filled with new, clean blood.

Of course, there was the possibility that it was just lessened. That the wolf had been diluted and would come upon her again in full force… she knew that other diseases of the blood were not so simple. And yet, they were a force the body would fight and, strangely, the lycanthrope was something her body had embraced, had drawn on, greedily, and it had been only her mind that was fighting. Only her heart.

His mouth was on her mouth, and his hands were sliding like ghosts over her sides, her breasts. She could feel the heat, radiating off him, off his skin, felt the way his hands clutched at her hair, still so gentle.

"I love you, Brigitte Fitzgerald," he murmured into her neck, lying next to her, when the touches had ceased, both of them exhausted- too tired to take this further.

She drew in a shuddering breath and, with her eyes still closed she said, "I love you."

And then she was crying, and it was ridiculous really, and she felt ridiculous, and really only one or two very hot tears escaped her closed eyes to slide down into the hair at her temples and Sam's hand curled around her so tightly and she heard the way his breath stuttered…

But she was crying because it had just felt so completely right to say it, and it was like everything she'd held onto, all the things she'd taken upon herself, everything weighing on her shoulders like a hundred lives, a thousand regrets, eased a little, and she reached up to pass her fingers over the wetness on her face, exhaling like she'd forgotten for so long how to breathe, then turned into Sam, whose eyes were fixed on her, but who didn't need an explanation. He kissed her forehead, holding onto her by the back of her neck and tucking his head down, almost nose to nose, they slept.

In the morning, Sam's cut was healed. Completely, like it had been for years, and hers, when she pulled off the bandage, still bled a little, where the gauze pulled away. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, because Sam- what about Sam.

"Brigitte…"

"Yeah?"

"Tyler's a nurse or-?"

"An orderly."

"Would he know how to do a blood transfusion.?"

"That's so fucking illegal." Tyler said.

"Like you care," Brigitte said, giving him a strange little smile. She was sitting with her legs crossed on an armchair, Sam standing beside her.

They were in Tyler's hotel room, almost having a stand-off. Tyler was facing them, arms crossed and frowning.

"I mean, yeah, I could do it but we don't know your blood type or… I mean how the fuck are you going to get enough blood to do this? Enough of your type?"

"I know my blood type," Sam said.

There was a silence.

"How much blood would I have to lose before-?"

"Don't be stupid." Brigitte cut him off.

Tyler pressed his lips together.

Brigitte stood up, slowly - her body stiff, sore. She almost relished the pain - what it meant. "This isn't going to work. Thanks for… not telling the clinic," Brigitte said.

"Yeah…" Tyler finished, looking relieved that he was no longer wrapped up in the most-definitely-illegal. "No problem, Brigitte."

Sometimes people came in and out of your life like that, she knew. Showed up for a reason, just long enough, and then gone the next second… who knew  _Tyler_  would end up so helpful.

Out on the sidewalk, Brigitte stopped and stared ahead, eyes unfocused, thinking.

"So what now?" She asked.

"The library," Sam said. "Let's finally get some research done."

"In World War Two," she said, much later that evening, back at their hotel room, "they preformed successful blood transfusions from person to person. It was called… 'interhuman blood transfusion."

Sam looked over her shoulder at the picture and grimaced. It looked like something straight out of a horror film. Two needles were attached to a sort of valve by two rubber tubes, the only purpose of the valve seeming to be the ceasing of bloodflow, and to attach the tubes. It looked primitive and strange - like something that had failed more than it had succeeded.

"Nah, Brigitte, I don't really like this idea."

"I'm not going to let you turn into what my sister turned into."

"You didn't seem willing to go to extremes like this before."

"Yeah," Brigitte said, "Well, before it would have been both of us in the same boat."

"Worst case scenario?"

"One of us is going to end up dead if we don't go through with this."

"There's got to be some other way," Sam said.

"I waited too long with Ginger," Brigitte said, "I'm not going to lose you too."

Sam fell silent, his eyes fixed on her small form, her small hands, toying with the syringes.

"…Well… then what? We build this thing and what? Find some innocent passer-by with my blood type?"

"Use mine," Brigitte said, meeting his eyes for the first time. "The doctor told me I was O negative. I can donate to anyone."

Sam stared at her.

"Yeah, Brigitte, but that also means that only O can donate to you."

"Then we'll have to do it right the first time."

"Brigitte-"

"Sam. Please… what if- what if we only have this small window? What if, if we wait too long, it's irreversible."

They held each other's eyes over the small table. "Okay…" he said. "But as soon as something goes wrong-"

" _If_  something goes wrong."

"If something goes wrong," he acquiesced, "we stop immediately. There will be no re-tries. Deal?"

"…Okay."

It took about four days to find all the parts they needed. But four days was better and easier than getting blood illegally.

They'd both read enough biology, and she'd read enough medical books to have a basic idea of how it would work, and after a few botched attempts, they managed to get Brigitte's blood flowing through the contraption they'd rigged up in a fairly steady stream.

"You know, I'm gonna have to more or less bleed out."

"I know," Brigitte said, her voice shaking and for the first time, betraying her fear.

"I don't know if you're going to be able to support both of us…"

"We can do it in…" she realised the flaw in the plan now. If the lycanthrope virus grew quickly enough, it might combat the blood she was giving him. If he didn't rid his body of enough of it, then this would all be for nothing. "Oh, shit."

"Yeah," he nodded, knowing she'd cottoned on. "We're going to have to do it all at once… like… I bleed out… enough, and then you…"

"It'll be okay."

"It'll be a guess. It might not even work."

"Then there's no harm done," she said, "right?"

"Yeah, except for the fact that it might kill both of us."

"We guess the dosage for the monkshood. Let's just hope we get lucky again."

Sam buried his face in his hands, then dragged his fingers through his hair.

"It's our only shot," she said, while he stared down at the carpet.

"Yeah," he whispered. "Yeah, all right."

Ginger and I memorised all the locations of major arteries," Brigitte said, later that night - they were both pale-faced and tired. "And I think it's more likely you'd bleed the best if we cut here," she touched a part of his arm, her fingers still shaking - he didn't think they'd stopped since they started talking about this - and it didn't help him much.

"It's not one of the biggest ones, and it's easier to stop than the throat or the groin, so…"

"So." He said.

"Ready?" she asked.

"No. But go."

"Promise me-"

"Don't," he said quickly, "you're freaking me out."

"Okay."

"Okay, he said, go."

. She couldn't look at him as she made the cut, deep into his skin. The blood flowed over her hands, and he muffled a scream behind his first, which was shoved against his lips, and she let out a soft sound as his blood flowed hot over her fingers, and then into the trash can they'd set under him. She skittered away, nervously.

For a few strange, slightly nauseating moments, they just listened to his blood drip heavily into the bucket, neither of them looking at it or at each other.

Three minutes passed and Sam grew pale, shakey. She readied the tube, taping the needle in the crook of her arm.

"If you even feel… remotely faint, I want you to turn that shit off, and get help," Sam said," and she looked up to find him watching her, leaning back in the chair he was sitting in.

"I know," she said - they'd discussed this. She turned the valve and watched her blood seeped through the tubes, and into his unwounded arm.

A long time passed.

"When do we stop?" he said, startling her, maybe two minutes or fifteen minutes later looking more nauseous than anything.

"I don't know…" she whispered. "We could try now? Do you want to stop now?"

"I don't want to go through this again," he said.

They lapsed into silence again. After a few more minutes, the seconds creeping excruciatingly by, she said. "I think we should stop."

He didn't move. His head was leaned back, and his eyes closed.

"Sam? Sam!"

"Yeah," he said, "I'm here."

She got up, careful not to disturb the needles in their arms, she unsteadily wrapped a tourniquet round his arm, slowing the bloodflow, then wrapped it up, around and around the blood with white gauze. "Hold you arm up," she said, pushing it over his head. He blinked blearily at her, and her heart was racing in fear. "Hold it  _up_ , Sam, and press on it."

Sam glanced to the garbage can, so much blood. "Oh, I'd definitely be dead now, if it wasn't for you."

"Shh," she said. "Should we stitch it up?"

"I'd really rather not deal with that," he said. "I'm so fucking tired."

"Stay awake, please."

The blood stopped soaking the bandages after a few more nervous moments, and he shifted, lowering his arm, just a little. "I feel okay," he said. "You should take that out," he told her, nodding towards the needle.

"Just wait," she said. "Did the bleeding stop?"

"I think so. Brigitte?"

"Hmm?" she asked, wrenching her eyes open.

" _You_  stay awake, all right?"

She swallowed, swaying a little on her feet.

"Right, out," he said, reaching out and pulling the needle from her arm. A fine trickle of blood slid down from the crook of her arm halfway to her wrist. She wiped at it vaguely.

"Okay?" he asked, softly.

"Okay."

The next morning, with shaking hands, Sam watched Brigitte make another incision on his arm, just above the old one, wrapped it up, and the waiting began.

Just to be safe, or maybe just because she hated doing it to him, alone, she did herself too, on her thigh this time. Watched her wrap the gauze around it.

Her legs weren't as scarred at her arms, but it was the first time that he'd really noticed the scars there. He knelt down in front of her, where she was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, wincing a little as the larger, arterial cut in his arm pained sharply under the bandage, then pressed his lips to the inside of her upper thigh, relishing her soft intake of breath.

Two days later, neither of their new cuts had healed completely.

"I wish the virus'd lasted long enough to heal this," he said as they drove out of Montreal. "It still fucking hurts."

"That's not funny," she said, wrestling the map out in front of her. It was worn, and faded with use, small holes ripping in the creases.

"So, what now?"

"Maryland?" she asked.

"Off to fight the lycanthropes of the United States?" he asked, pulling onto the highway.

"These jokes are not funny," she said.

"Who says I'm joking."

She looked sidelong at him, entirely un-amused, and he smiled widely.

"Maryland it is," he answered.

_Maybe it isn't how it was every supposed to be. Maybe it goes against everything Ginger and I promised each other when we were eight years old. I'm not going to tell you how people change - I've changed more than I ever thought possible - mentally and physically._

_The life I was living with Ginger was what I wanted because I loved her. More than anything. And I always will. But there was something, that was- not wrong, but- something not right._

_Sam and I… we've managed to do what we were starting to think was totally impossible._

_Somehow he managed to break through the obstinate walls of Brigitte Fitzgerald._

_It used to be what scared me the most - someone coming between me and my sister, but what came between me and Ginge was the same thing that brought Sam and me together._

_Sam and I. We… it just works. I feel like I can just be myself, and that was the thing I was most scared of losing._

_And I haven't._

finis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, thanks to Hannah, who is, and always will be the Ginge to my Bee - lots of love.


End file.
